Pregnant Woman Beaten Over Ponmo Stench Dispute

Trouble started for Mrs Samuel after she asked her neighbour to move a bowl soaked with pomo from her window at 8 Olaniran Crescent around Oluwa -Shehu Ayo area of Ijegun.

Thirty-six year-old pregnant woman, Mrs Deborah Samuel, has fled her Ijegun home in Lagos State, following alleged threat to her life by a male tenant who allegedly beat her to a pulp during an argument over stench from ponmo (cow skin).

Her request turned out to be her greatest undoing as she alleged that the neighbour identified simply as Baba Miracle, pounced on her until she passed out.

Narrating her ordeal shortly after she was discharged from a private hospital around Ijegun, where she was rushed to, Mrs Samuel said: “As if the beating was not enough, he threatened that he would kill me, boasting that nothing will happen because he has a brother who is a Divisional Police Officer that will defend him.

“Baba Miracle and his family occupy a flat upstairs, while we live in the back flat down stairs. His wife sells pomo (cow skin) whose stench inconveniences other tenants.

“As usual, she brought some fresh pomo and started burning it at our middle post last week. All the tenants complained about the position of burning but they refused to heed to plea that they should move it away from my window.

“Because of my present state,(pregnancy) I left the house and sat outside until my husband arrived. We went inside, only to be confronted with the unbearable smell. Unable to stand it, my husband went to the back yard to wash the water that was dripping from the basin of ponmo, in order to reduce the odour.”

But to my surprise the next day, after my husband left for work, Baba Miracle was heard bragging that he was not satisfied with the slap he landed on my husband’s face. He said he would kill a member of my family.

Scared by the comment, I left the house for my husband’s place of work which is not far from our house. While waiting for him at the reception, Baba Miracle came there and continued the threat to my life, until he was asked to leave the premises by the private guards.

On my way home, he ambushed me and beat me until I passed out, only to be resuscitated at the hospital”.

After she was discharged from the hospital, the Samuels who only moved into the building four months ago relocated to a relation’s place around Isheri-Oshun.

Vanguard