The victim, 19-year-old Adenike (not real name), a hair stylist, volunteered to speak with Saturday PUNCH,
saying she summoned the courage to speak about her ordeal because she
did not want them to go free and do the same to someone else.
Narrating how she was violated by the
three men whom she trusted most in their neighbourhood, Adenike told our
correspondent that not once did she suspect within the two years she
knew them that they had such a heinous plan for her.
Calmly, but with a lot of anger and pain
showing in her eyes, Adenike said, “I became friends with them as
neighbours two years ago when my mother first rented an apartment in the
area.
“Kehinde
began to make advances to me. But I told him we were friends and did
not want to be in a relationship with him. I have always rejected his
advances.
“Later he would tell Habeeb and Ilyas to
approach me to appeal on his behalf to accept his proposal, but I made
them to understand that I could not go out with him. But we still talked
and sat together in the neighbourhood as friends.”
Unknown to Adenike, the gentle
disposition of her three friends was just a façade for the plan they had
hatched on how to sexually assault her.
On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, an opportunity presented itself for the rapist friends to put their plan to work.
Adenike said, “In the morning of that
day, around 9.30am, I went over Kehinde’s house like I usually did
sometimes when I had nothing to do at home. I trusted them completely
and usually went there to while away the time.
“Habeeb and Ilyas were there also. We
were just talking when Habeeb suddenly came to me and picked me up. He
threw me on the bed and I told him that I didn’t like that kind of play.
I said, ‘If this is part of your playful habit I am not up for it.’
“But as he threw me on the bed, before I
could stand up, he lay on me and pinned me down firmly. Kehinde quickly
came over and started to remove my underwear. That was when I knew what
they wanted to do. I struggled with them but they pinned me down and
took turns to rape me.
Adisa
“When I was screaming, one of them
quickly went to the CD player, which was on at the time and turned on
the music to maximum volume so that it would drown out my voice.”
When they finished, the three friends
smiled in relish, it was learnt. They told their prey to pretend that
what happened to her was a mere sexual encounter.
“They told me to just forget what
happened and keep it between the four of us. But I realised that if I
was afraid of stigma and kept it to myself, they would walk free and
even boast to their friends about what they did to me. They would surely
do it to someone else,” Adenike said.
Bruised and battered, Adenike summoned
the courage to approach someone she trusted in the neighbourhood and
narrated what happened to her. She was immediately advised to go to the
Iju Police Division and report the incident.
As soon as she reported, some landlords in the area rose in the men’s defence.
Adenike’s mother said that because the
parents of the rapists are landlords in the area, they first threatened
her that if she decided to make the issue a police case, she would lose.
But on Thursday, after the police had
arrested the suspects, our correspondent witnessed as families of the
culprits and other residents of the area came out to the police station
to beg Adenike’s mother.
Adenike’s case highlights the increasing
incidence of sexual offences in Nigeria, where majority of sexual
offences go unreported.
On Friday, the spokesperson for the
Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Kenneth Nwosu, told our correspondent
that the suspects had been charged to court.
, Kehinde Aderinoye (25...){kind=link}