Lola Akande, Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, has stated that she was shocked seeing Mercy Aigbe’s condition when she came to her office to officially report her bitter experience in the hands of her estranged husband, Lanre Gentry.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos, the commissioner said the beautiful actress was coughing blood when she came to her office crying for help.
Hear her: “She was coughing blood from her nose and mouth and she had injury on her face which the doctor said she must have an operation. I was so angry that I need to see the face of the man that did this to her, and so we invited him and he came yesterday (Tuesday) to say his own side of the story to the official in charge of domestic violence. But any man that can beat a woman to a pulp like that to the extent that she is still coughing blood one week after the incident, need to have his head examined.”
Akande says the Lagos State Government has secured a restraining order for Aigbe from any further abuse by her husband. She commends the actress for speaking out against domestic violence and urged other women going through similar situation not to keep quiet about their ordeal.
“I must commend the courage of Mercy, because what she did is what other women who are victims of domestic violence out there need to do, they don’t need to hide it except they want to die there.”
Lanre Gentry was on Tuesday interrogated by the Lagos State department of Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT).