TRACKING___A 25-year-old mother of two, Joy Ojo, has cried out from the Ubiaja Correctional Services in Edo State, following her death sentence on the allegation of killing her own father.
Joy, a native of Ekpoma in the state, who has been languishing in the prison for five years now, insists that she did not and could not possibly kill her own father, adding that her family members framed her up for a murder she knew nothing about.
Joy, whose plight was brought to public notice by a non-governmental organisation, Abounding Grace Ministry who interviewed her inside the prison, narrated her journey to prison and the circumstances that led to her being charged with the murder of her father.
In the interview where she is seen crying profusely, Joy, a product of a broken home, said she grew up with her mother and stepfather after her father abandoned her and her mother when she was a kid.
Joy who is also a song writer and has written over 42 songs while in prison, said her parents were not formally married when her mother became pregnant and her father abandoned her and travelled out of the country. Her mother later got married and she grew up with the stepfather who did his best to bring her up as his child.
But when she was in secondary school, her friends kept taunting her and called her derogatory names, leading to her asking her mother to take her to her real father, something her mother reluctantly did.
But the reunion with her father was not what she expected as her father kept tormenting her day and night and she had to run away to Benin City, the Edo State capital, to fend for herself.
While in Benin, she got a job as a sales girl in a restaurant and that was when she met a man who promised to marry her and she moved in with him. But after two kids, the man suddenly packed his things and left Joy to her fate.
Not able to take care of her two children all alone, Joy decided to go back to her father and begged him for forgiveness but still, their relationship did not improve as her father was not happy that she came back home with two children without a father.
According to Joy, her father never accepted her and her kids and insisted that she must bring the man who had gotten her pregnant. One day, she said she was about going to the church when her father locked the house and gates and began beating her.
In her struggle to escape from him, the father fell and hit his head on a chair, drawing blood. Joy used the opportunity to open the doors and gates and called on neighbours who rushed the old man to the hospital where he was treated and discharged a few days later.
Joy had to go back to her mother’s place as she did not know what her father would do to her when he came back from the hospital.
But after a month, Joy said she was surprised when some policemen came to her mother’s place to arrest her without telling her what her offence was until they got to the police station where she was told that her father was dead and that she was the one who killed him.
After spending months in police detention, Joy was charged to court for the murder of her father and despite her claims of innocence, she was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to death.
