Police bungle rape case, release suspects who gang-raped 13-year-old in Ogun

A case of alleged police compromise has been reported in a rape case involving a 13-year-old girl in Akute, Ogun State.

Betty Abah, the Executive director at Cee-Hope Nigeria, said the non-profit organisation had taken up the case of the minor who was gang raped by four boys in her neighbourhood.

The victim had been kidnapped on her way from school over a week ago. Her assailants were said to have made her lose consciousness by rubbing a white substance into her eyes.

“They dragged her some where and took turns raping her in her unconscious state,” Abah said.

“She was later found in a large pool of blood and rescued. Violated back and frontally.”

The crime, Abah says, was promptly brought to the attention of the police at Ajuwon Police Station by the victim’s poor parents.

The police would later arrest two of the criminals, as well as a father, and that was when things took an almost unbelievable turn.

All arrested persons, Abah says, were released “when ‘money spoke'”.

“The gender department at the station didn’t think she (the victim) needed better, urgent treatment, contraceptives etc. She was given pain killers at a clinic nearby and sent home, albeit wearily. Her parents were helpless,” the Director says.

“When we were alerted and took up the case and got her treated at Mirabel Centre, Lagos, brought in Punch newspaper to report, the police state command in Abeokuta, Ogun State, saw the report and immediately summoned the station’s DPO,” she adds.

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But the said DPO dismissed the Punch publication as a ‘rubbish report'”, she adds.

By this time, the boys who committed the crime had fled, but the police quickly arrested two of their mothers on Tuesday (yesterday) and hastily took them to court in lieu of their run-away sons.

The court has fixed December 9 for next hearing on the case. The women remain in custody.

“For now, our girl, hurt, shamed and afraid, has stopped going to school,” Abah says. “She remains hidden in her parish pastor’s house, scared of a reprisal from the untouchable boys.”

One of the suspects was said to have recently been released from jail before he committed the crime with his accomplices.