The police in Lagos State are
investigating an alleged rape of a Primary five pupil, Zainab
(pseudonym) by a gang of five men in the Bariga area of Lagos State.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the police had arrested all the suspects, who were being interrogated at the Bariga Police Division.
Zainab, 15, was said to have been lured into an apartment on Opeloyeru Street, where the men took turns to rape her. It was gathered that the victim’s
“crime” was that she turned down the advances of one of the men,
identified as Femi, who wanted to date her. The victim and her father were said to
have first reported the case at the Oworonshoki Police Division, which
allegedly dismissed it.
A family friend, however, took it up and reported it to an agency of the Lagos State Government.
Zainab was subsequently taken to the Mirabel Centre of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, for medical tests. The Kwara State indigene, who spoke with
our correspondent, said since the incident, people in the community had
been avoiding her like a plague.
She said, “I am in Primary five, but I
am also an apprentice in a hairdressing shop. I was given a piece of
cloth by my boss on January 6, and I needed a tailor to sew it for me.
Mr. Femi said he would assist me and I gave him the cloth.
“But when I went to him to take my
clothes, he told me that he wanted to date me. When the pestering did
not stop, I let go of the clothes and stopped communicating with him.
“On Monday, January 11, around 8pm, our
landlord’s son called me that Abidoye, a neighbour, was looking for me.
It was not the first time that I would go to the man’s house to run
errands for him or his wife, so I thought he wanted to send me on an
errand.
“But on entering the room, I discovered
it was dark and the man was not around. As I turned back to go, a group
of five men, led by the tailor, grabbed me and blocked my mouth. They
took turns to rape me. The whole thing lasted for about one hour.”
It was learnt that Zainab, after the
ordeal, started wailing uncontrollably, which caught the attention of
her father, identified simply as Adeyemi. Her father, who expressed sorrow over the incident, said he reported at Oworonshoki, but the police threw away the case.
He said he later told his friend, who then called the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender.
“It is a thing of sorrow for me. How can
anybody hear that five men raped my daughter? But we have nobody to
help us except God,” the father of three said.
The family friend, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, urged that justice be done for the victim and
the suspects punished to serve as a deterrent to others.
“This is evil at its peak. I can’t imagine anybody doing this to my daughter,” he added.
Our correspondent learnt that the OPD
referred the case to the Ilupeju Police Division, which then issued
Zainab a letter to the Mirabel Centre for medical tests. The matter was later taken over by the Bariga Police Station, which went after the suspects. A source said the police arrested six suspects. He said,
“The police were working on the
girl’s story of five suspects, but after the arrests, the men said
there were actually six of them involved in the rape. All of them are
currently in detention.”
The Public Relations Officer of OPD,
Adeoba Adeniji-Adele, said victims of rape should protect evidence by
not taking a shower after attack, saying sweat was a piece of evidence.
He said, “The rate of rape in our
society is becoming alarming. We are going to increase our campaign
against rape and domestic violence.”
The Police Public Relations Officer, SP
Dolapo Badmos, said she would call back our correspondent, but she had
yet to do as of the time of filing this report.
