A 12-year-old girl identified only as Rachael, who reportedly left her native Akwa Ibom State in company of her aunt, Joy Isong to Lagos state, has narrated her rape experience in the hands of her aunt’s customer and son.
She told the Punch she regrets the day she made the decision to leave her widowed mother, to follow her aunt who runs a restaurant in the Mafoluku, Oshodi, area of Lagos state.
Rachael who said she was enrolled in class five in a primary school in the area, said she had been raped two at different times in her aunt’s home.
She said, “I loved to come to Lagos but I did not want to leave my mother, but my aunt said if I followed her to Lagos, I would be happy. But now, I am so sad I did not know this is the kind of thing I will come and go through here,” Rachael said, noting that she was sleeping in her aunt’s house one evening after the woman had gone to the market.
“I woke up when I had the feeling of someone lying on top of me. I tried to push him away. I knew him. I had seen him in my aunt’s house a few times,” she said.
The man, according to the victim, is one Christian Nse, a father of five, who attends the same church as Rachael’s aunty.
“He is also my aunt’s customer. I tried to push him away from me. But he covered my mouth. Music was playing inside our house then. He had increased the volume and I did not know.
“He told me not to shout and said he would buy me expensive clothes. I told him I did not want any clothes, but he still raped me as he covered my mouth.
“When he finished, he told me to go to the bathroom and clean up the blood. Then he opened the door and left,” Rachael sobbed.
“When my aunt came back, I told her what happened and she saw that I was still bleeding. She told me to go and clean up the blood. She then went out to see the man who raped me (Nse).
“She asked the man what happened and they went to see their pastor together,” she said.
Reports say when they got to the pastor, Nse allegedly admitted that he indeed raped the girl and rather than report the matter to appropriate authorities, the pastor, Mr. Ezekiel Okon, asked Nse to kneel as he prayed fervently for him, asking God to deliver him from the spirit of rape.
Meanwhile, the pastor and the aunt begged to let the matter pass, claiming that the girl was simply fondled but not raped.
The victim’s aunt was quoted to have said, “Please sir, the man who touched her breast is no longer in Lagos.”
On his part, the pastor said, “I was notified of the issue and I even scolded the man when they brought him to me. He has promised never to do such a thing again. Please, let us just forget it.”
Rachael explained that after she was raped by Nse, her aunt started taunting and tormenting her with hurtful words.
She said, “She started laughing at me. She was making jest of me and saying that I would become pregnant for the man. She said when I have the man’s child, I would become his wife. I always cried whenever she said that.
“One man on our street later heard about the matter and went to tell the wife of the man (Nse) what happened. The man’s wife then came to my aunt’s house and took me to a hospital.
“The doctor in the hospital said that I still had some blood inside me that needed to be washed out. After he washed it out, he gave me injection and I was told to go home.”
In a chat with the wife of the alleged rapist, Mrs Nse, she disclosed that her husband did rape the girl.
According to her, “I believe my husband indeed raped the girl.
“I was angry with him. When I confronted him, he said he did not know what to say. We have been married for more than 20 years. I did not even speak with him for some weeks after I heard he raped the girl,” she said.
But that was not the end of Rachael’s ordeal.
While battling with the trauma of being forced to let go of the rape incident, Rachael said one of her aunt’s sons also raped her.
She said few days later, when her aunt was away from the house, the woman’s 18-year-old son, Daniel, who is Rachael’s cousin, allegedly grabbed her again and raped her.
Rachael said, “I told him that I would tell his mummy when she came back. I told him that I did not believe that he was an animal because I had always seen him like my own brother.
“But he just laughed after he had raped me. When my aunt came and I told her, she shouted at me to leave her presence. She said she did not like looking at my face because I am very ugly. She told me to get out,” the traumatised teenager lamented, adding that when she knew she had lost all hope, she decided to open up to her class teacher all she had been going through at home.
Fate played a positive turn on Rachael when her unnamed teacher, after listening to her, promptly informed the authorities of the Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Education who had reportedly previously held an awareness lecture on rape and sexual assault, telling the teachers and pupils what to do when they go through such things.
The case subsequently got to the Jeshabel Foundation, a ‘Touch-A-Heart Foundation.’
