Kelvin Iyere, a former Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, has allegedly been assaulting his wife and has threatened to kill her if she dares report him to the public. Not only did Iyere assault his wife, he had also descended on his mother-in-law and threatened to kill her, according to eyewitnesses. 

On February 26, Joy Idiaghagbon, Kelvin’s wife, had run to her mother’s house to avoid molestation by her husband. But her 63-year-old mother, Omoye Usadoh, is now alleging that Kelvin dragged her on the floor, beat her other children and threatened to kill them with a gun, when she prevented him from forcefully taking away his wife from her home.

“Since Kelvin married my daughter, he has been assaulting her. He beats her every day. In fact, my daughter had four children with him forcefully,”  Usadoh told FIJ.

“So, this recent one, I was in my house when my daughter came and told me she was sick and that Kelvin has refused to take care of her.

“Suddenly, Kelvin came to my house to forcefully take his wife after somebody had told him she was with me. He started beating her again and when I told him to stop beating my daughter, he dragged me on the floor and descended on me. 

“He dragged me on the floor twice. Now, my BP is high. Doctor says it is 200/100. Since then, I haven’t been able to do anything for myself and I have been falling sick. I don’t know what to do.”

According to Usadoh, when Kelvin came with a gun, she and her other children ran away from him.

“He came with a gun and threatened to shoot us,” she said.

This claim was corroborated by eyewitnesses who alleged that Kelvin had boasted that nothing would happen even if he killed any of them —because he has many police friends.

Glory Onos, Joy’s elder sister, also alleged that Kelvin hadd threatened to kill his wife if she dared speak to any journalist about him.

When FIJ requested to speak to Joy, through Glory, she said: “I don’t understand her any longer; she will not want to speak to you. As I speak to you, she is back to her husband’s house and she has been warned not to talk to anybody.”

On March 3, Glory had written a petition against Kelvin, calling the attention of the Edo State Commissioner of Police on the matter. “Sir, I pray you use your good office to bring Kelvin Iyere to book as the lives of my family members are no longer safe.”

When contacted, Kelvin denied all allegations against him. He insisted that he had no disagreement with his wife. He added that her wife’s sister, Glory, is responsible for the blackmail.

“As I speak to you, I am with my wife. We are good. We never had issues. I have never beaten her,” he said in a telephone conversation with FIJ. He then handed the phone over to the wife who said his husband had never beaten him.

“It’s a lie; he has not been beating me,” the wife said tersely, with a shaky voice over the phone. 

But Glory insisted that Kelvin had only put his younger sister under duress, stressing that she has been caged and warned not to speak out. To corroborate her claim, she sent FIJ a voice note of her sister crying for help in her days of being assaulted by her husband.

“It’s just a blackmail,” Kelvin reiterated. “Glory is saying all these things about me because I had issues with her husband while we were in school. 

“He’s a chronic liar,” Glory responded. “My husband and Kelvin never met in school. My husband graduated the year Kelvin got admission.”