Children of the Late General Jemitola, Obasanjo’s Former ADC, Forcibly Eject Stepmother from Abuja Residence

Aso Drive, the serene and highbrow vicinity of Abuja, the edifying capital city of Nigeria, was on Monday afternoon [December 22, 2025] thrown into a paroxysm of turmoil. Caleb Jemitola, a twenty-eight year-old son of the late Major General Christopher Adewole Jemitola (retd), a former Aide De Camp (ADC) to Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, attempted to throw Mrs. Safiya Ibrahim Mamman-Jemitola, his stepmother and surviving wife of their late father, from the palatial residence, where their father had lived with her until he died.

From nowhere, about twenty policemen in uniform and plain clothes, with tens of thugs, as alleged by Mrs Jemitola, stormed the No 16 Udi Hills Street, Aso Drive residence of the late army general, in the early hours of the day. In what bystanders called ‘a gestapo style’, the policemen and youth assemble darted to the mansion located in the Udi Hills Street’s section of the Aso Drive neighbourhood, housing the opulent edifices of the country’s bigboys, such as the late President Muhammadu Buhari, General Buba Marwa, czar of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Prof Jerry Gana, orator and frontline politician cum former minister for African Integration, Godknows Igali, a former civil servant and ambassador, among nunerous others.

Their mission was said to be a mere service of court papers, but which turned out to be indecent and lethal attacks on the widow of the late army general, Mrs Sefiya Jemitola. If the oral testimonies of the embittered woman couldn’t sufficiently explain, a letter to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Abuja, by Nureimi Jimoh (SAN), her lawyer, did.

In the said petition, entitled “Urgent Distressing Situations & Threats To Life At 16, Udi Hills, Maitama”, Jimoh, SAN, further described it as ‘disturbing and near fatal incidents”, in which “more than 20 (twenty) officers, without any warrant and former identifications, … “Broke the massive gate of the house and launched an attack in the private residence in a commando style. The petition gave vivid accounts of the ‘readiness of the invasion’, that the assailants came with cudgels, knives, piercing apparels and generator, etc, to break into the house.

The petition also stated that the police officers “harassed, embarrassed, humiliated and threated Mrs Safiya Jemitola and her sister” on the guise that they accompanied Federal High Court officers to serve a court process.

The story was best narrated by Mrs Safiya Jemitola herself, via telephone, whereas THE CONCLAVE online newspaper reporter couldn’t get his way through to meet her; although he tarried around the locked gate of the house and the vicinity for about two hours. While there were no policemen outside, there were youth prancing in and outside the building, as he could see through the crevices of the gate that wasn’t fully closed. He didn’t have to take the risk of making to enter the building, for the obvious reason of bodily attack by the youths, and as the video footages of the alleged attacks, which was at his possession, showed rowdy situations.

Mrs Safiya Jemitola, who spoke in a quavering voice, told the THE CONCLAVE that the attacks were centred on the claims of inheritance of the late army general, as being masterminded by his ex-wife, who she identified simply as ‘Florence’, with the aforementioned stepson, Caleb and Iman, her 27 years old stepdaughter. She continued that when her late husband legally divorced Josephine in 2023, he had a divorced settlement by which he gave two houses to Florence, one of which she now lives in, while the other she rented out. She asserted that the late general had married her legally, under the Islamic law, where both his family and hers agreed, as sealed up in the wedding consummated in 2024.

“Before and after we got married, my late husband, a very good and lovely man, who cared for us all, his family members, gave an order to his children, household workers and others close to him that I remained his wife and hold the brief for him, at that”, She said.

When asked why things degenerated to the present situations, she said that her life and that of the once united family her late husband had built, with her, started falling apart immediately after the death of her husband on February 2025 at age 63.

“Caleb, my living stepson, with whom I had had a good rapport, soon took along his sister, Iman, to hate me. l know it is not their making but that of their mum, who is goading them. I wonder what legacy she wants the family of my late husband to have, after the lot he had put into all of us during his life and times. ”

She said that the relationship she had tried to maintain with the prodding of the extended family members of her late husband’s son turned asunder by the sudden uncompromising attitudes of her step-children and their mother. The matters, she maintained, reached a height when Caleb wrote a petition against her to the Police, that she threatened him and that his life was no longer safe, while he lived in the Udi Hills house with her. She said that it was Caleb, who left the house since 7th November, 2025 on his own choice.

“If coming to a house he once lived is the matter, why come in through a court service and breakage of the house’s protection gadgets, with a horde of security men and unruly youth? Why hold your stepmother in captivity, under house arrest, under such miserable conditions, because that is exactly what is happening in our late brother’s house?”

Against the backdrop, Mrs Safiya Jemitola’s claim that she had been held captive in her bedroom in the first floor of the house, with electricity cut off, was somewhat suspected by this reporter, whose visit to the house was restricted. There was a sign of eletricity in the ground floor and around the mansion, but possibly not where Safiya was “detained”.

Mrs Safiya Jemitola had earlier asserted that the Force Intelligence Department (FID) and IPU unit that carried out the operation, did so at the behest of a PSO, Ahmed Lateef, from the Inspector General of Police (IGP’s) office.

According to investigation carried out at the Commisioner’s Office at the Abuja Police Command, two of its top officers, who preferred that their names are not mentioned, said that issue was beyond what the command could handle.

Attempts to reach the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Asokoro Division was not fruitful as he was said to have gone out, while calls to his phone were not answered.

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Mrs Safiya Jemitola continued that although the matter had become a subject of multiple litigations, it was left as a muffled issue before the public and at the realm of quiet lower courts’ trials, even though it was her step children who started it. She said she always abided with the peaceful nature of her late husband. Hence, she had resisted bringing it to the public. As attested to by the various legal and court documents, she harped on the abuse of court process, in that a High Court order on 14th November, 2025 in Suit No: FCT)CV/2121/25 by Justice Chizoba N. Oji, that the status quo remained in force until the determination of the matter on February 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th, 2026, was breached by the new order, which brought about the invasion. The alleged breach was the order in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/2459/2025 which Justice B.F.M. Nyanko, of the Federal High Court, made on 17th November, 2025.

Caleb Jemitola, the young man at the centre of the ugly episode, was, however, reached by THE CONCLAVE on telephone. His straight response was that he wasn’t talking to press because he wanted to take it away from the pubic, and that it bothered on the sanctity of his privacy. He cut off the call abruptly. But he called back, this time round, friendlier,, but maintained his former position. He gave a promise that he could call again if he had anything to say as he would brief his father’s family before commenting on the issue to the press.

But an elderly person within the family of the late General Jemitola was pained that Caleb, their son, wasn’t forthcoming as they make to settle the matter amicably in the family way. “He hardly calls us on phone, neither does he respond to our telephone calls,” he volunteered, saying that he always prayed for his wellbeing.

“Many children of military parents are ill-mannered, the reason why the army chooses to give them constant orientation, as they are part of the defence collective, as it is meant to be.” But one wouldn’t conclude that Caleb, a son of the respected late army don, is one of the bad examples, despite the purported attacks and “incarceration” of his stepmother inside her room in the disputed residence.

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