A NIGERIAN woman based in Texas, Gbemisola Akayinode, has been charged with murder of her nine-year-old daughter, Oluwasikemi, who reportedly died after being left inside a hot car.
ABC News reported that on July 1, Akayinode allegedly left her daughter inside a car for over eight hours while she worked at a manufacturing plant in Galena Park, near Houston.
The report stated that the 36-year-old mother was arrested on October 17, after Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez ruled her daughter’s death a homicide resulting from heatstroke.
Court documents cited in the report revealed that Akayinode arrived at work around 5:45 a.m. and left Oluwasikemi in the car with food, a rechargeable fan, ice cubes, and water, after rolling the back windows halfway down.
Akayinode reportedly told investigators that she did not check on her daughter until her shift ended at 1:53 p.m. but upon returning to the car, she found Oluwasikemi unresponsive and blue, prompting her to scream for help.
The report stated that Akayinode had brought her daughter to work multiple times, including the day before the incident, claiming she couldn’t afford daycare until her next paycheck, but investigators later discovered that the foreman at her workplace had been paying for the child’s daycare, contradicting her statement.
Officials told ABC News that they were waiting for the autopsy results before deciding on possible criminal charges, while Akayinode is expected to appear in court on Monday.
The ICIR reported in May that the deaths of children trapped in abandoned or unattended vehicles have become a recurring tragedy in Nigeria, claiming at least 18 young lives since 2021, following the tragic death of five children found dead in an abandoned vehicle in the Agyaragu community in Nasarawa State on May 5.
According to the police, at about 5:30 pm, a resident of the area, Ozimna Ogbor, reported to the police that the children were discovered ‘unresponsive’ inside an unserviceable vehicle parked in a compound.
The ICIR tracked five of such reported incidents since 2021 where children have reportedly suffocated to death in Kwara, Delta, Niger, and Lagos states.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.