An 80-year-old man, Godwin Faworinshe, who claims to be a pastor with a church in Shomolu, Lagos was allegedly drugged and robbed by his 49-year-old mistress, Funmilola Adesanya.
A distraught Faworinshe from Ago-Iwoye in Ogun State, told a magistrate court in Yaba that his Ikorodu, Lagos-born mistress added sleeping pills to his medication and bolted with his money after he fell into a deep sleep.
In his testimony in the court, Faworinshe, stated that he had promised to give Funmilola some money to enable her start a new business but she was not patient enough.According to him, “on that fateful day, I went out in the morning, Funmilola probably thought that I had gone to the bank to collect some huge amount of money. When I got back around 11am, I requested that she give me my medications. I have been on some prescribed medications due to ailments attributed to old age.
And one of the reasons I asked her to move in with me, was to help me with cooking and household chores; otherwise, I have a wife who is currently in my house at Ago-Iwoye, but she is old, so I had to engage Funmi to take care of me. She had always administered the medicines to me. Albeit, without my knowledge, she added some sleeping pills to my medicine that morning and immediately I took it, I slept off till she got the chance to take my bag and the money I had in the bag. The amount she took was N172,000. Thereafter, she ran out of the house.” The pastor further told the court that around 4pm, some of his tenants, who noticed that he had been sleeping for a longer period than he usually did during the day started banging on his door, calling “Baba! Baba!! Baba!!!” When they discovered that the door was not locked, they opened it and found him in deep sleep; they had to pour water on him before he woke. Not able to explain what happened to him, he asked for Funmi, his mistress, and one his of tenants told him that he saw her going out in the morning hours. He searched his room and discovered that the N172,000 he kept in his bag was missing; that was when he suspected that he must have been drugged and robbed by his mistress.
The matter was reported to the Bariga police station and Funmi was arrested 13 days later in Ikorodu.
However, Funmilola has denied adding any sleeping pills to Faworinshe’s medicine that morning or stealing his money. She told the court that Godwin had given her the money to go to Ikorodu and take care of her ailing child. She added that their relationship had been having some challenges, one of which was Faworinshe’s non-chalant attitude towards the upkeep of her children. A responsibility he did not want to carry.
In her words: “I had told Baba that one of my children was ill, but he did not want to do anything about it, he would always ask me, do you want to bring the responsibility of another man’s children to me?’ This is one of the reasons I want to opt out. Godwin is only accusing me because he must have felt bad with the thought of me leaving him”.
Information provided by the police, however, showed that the accused had earlier in her statement after she was arrested, admitted committing the crime.
Her lawyer pleaded that the matter be resolved amicably out of court. The case was adjourned, while the accused was granted bail in the sum of N30,000 with two sureties in like sum.