When the man she had always called Uncle Joe, invited her to his room, four-year-old Ngozi was not worried.
They
lived in the same compound at 38, Eletu Edibu Street, Abule Ijesha,
Yaba, Lagos and he was always nice to her and other children, buying
them sweets or biscuits whenever he was around from his security job at
the University of Lagos.
So, when Uncle Joe asked Ngozi to come into his room on Sunday, August 26, 2012, there was nothing unusual about it
Typical of most four-year-olds, she looked forward to a treat of probably, biscuits or sweets or soft drinks from Uncle Joe.
When
she went in, he gave her a bottle of soft drink, quite all right but
heartlessly, also had unlawful carnal knowledge of her and robbed the
little girl, not much more than a baby, of her virginity.
Following
the little girl’s disclosure of what he did to her, first to her
parents, Innocent and Benedicta Akanugwo and to doctors at Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital (LASUTECH), Ikeja, ‘Uncle’ Joe Ishanq has
gone missing and the police are looking for him.
The girl’s
distressed father, Innocent, is quoted to have said his daughter took
him by surprise when she came to him and kept repeating: ‘Daddy, Daddy,
Uncle Joe took me to his room, bought me Pepsi, put cream on his bom-bom
and my bom-bom, and put his bom-bom into my bom-bom.’
“I knew
something had gone wrong with my daughter and I became confused. I
didn’t know what action to take or who to consult for advice.”
He
said he took his daughter to three women who were their neighbours and
before whom the little girl repeated what she had told him.
”After
the women confirmed that my daughter had been sexually assaulted, I was
advised to also confirm from the hospital before proceeding to the
police station to avoid false accusation,” he said.
He said he
reported the sexual abuse of his daughter to Yaba Divisional Police
Station, but not before the suspect, Ishanq had run away.
“The
Police have not been able to arrest him but he has not shown up at his
apartment or at his place of work since the day he assaulted my
daughter.
“Each time police officers get there, his colleagues hide him or protect his identity."
He
said findings from three private hospitals showed the little girl was
raped even before police referred them to Lagos State University
Teaching Hospital for comprehensive confirmation.
Little Ngozi’s mother, Benedicta, said people like the suspect “should not be living among human beings.”
She
told The Guardian it was when what happened to their daughter came to
light that they heard that Joe Ishanq had, in the past, been accused of
several rape cases and that his wife ran away with their six-month-old
baby because of that.
She said: “Though we know that nothing can
revert the damage done to our daughter, we want the culprit brought to
book and stopped from further committing such evil act.”
She noted
that there were other similar cases of rape of little girls and minors
by adults the day they went for confirmatory test of their daughter at
LASUTH.
“Such cases need thorough investigation so that the culprits are made to face the law”, she said.
The
Lagos State Government, recently put cases of rape committed in 2011 in
the state at 283, out of which 11 suspects were prosecuted and
convicted.
The Special Adviser on Youth Social Development, Dr.
Dolapo Badru, who called for collateral action against rape said one of
the cases, involved a father who impregnated his daughter and was
prosecuted and convicted.
He expressed profound concern of the
state government to bring the trend to the barest minimum, assuring
residents of commitment to fight the crime.
d person should b 4given
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