Teenager Zainab, was said
to have been lured into an apartment on Opeloyeru Street, where five men took
turns to rape her.
The fifteen year old victim’s
turned down the advances of one of the men, identified as Femi, who wanted to
date her.
Police had arrested all the
suspects, who were being interrogated at the Bariga Police Division.
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.
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.
wicked
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