Narrating her ordeal to journalists at the Nigeria Union of Journalist, NUJ, press centre in Jos on Thursday, the victim, a final year secondary school student, said the suspect, Tom Edumun, who is a co-tenant with her father, had made several attempts to rape her and later succeeded in March.
“He had been asking me to sleep with him but I kept refusing, until that fateful day, sometime in March, when my father travelled to the village and nobody was at home. He forced himself on me and had sex with me in our room. Thereafter, he threatened me with a knife, that if I told anyone he would kill me,” the terrified girl said of her alleged attacker who is married with two children
“After that day, he called me to his car and drove me to a house far away from our compound. He took me to a room where two other men were waiting. They laid me down and he (Mr. Edumun) used a strange instrument to draw blood from my private parts. The three of them were holding knives. They threatened to kill me if I told my father.
“It kept disturbing me. I was becoming afraid. I could not face my father and tell him; so one day I told my younger brother, Tonzum, about all that the man had done to me. I wrote a note to my father, and then ran away to Abuja to inform my aunt. She was the one who called my father and told him. He then asked me to come back home here in Jos,” the victim narrated.
She said prior to the rape, Mr. Edumun sometimes wrote love notes to her and asked her to tear them after reading.
“But I kept them and showed them to my father. The day (Mr. Edumun) raped me, he promised to give me N2,000 if I let him (have sex with me). I still refused but he forced me when everyone had left home,” she said.
According to the victim, the first of five children, she often went on errand for her rapist and his wife.
“I was very close to the wife. When this incident happened, I confided in his wife but she did nothing about it instead she threatened to beat me up. She harassed my stepmom and Dad,” she said.
The victim’s father, Gonzuk Emanuel, who is a teacher at Government Secondary School, Gyel, said he had reported the matter to the (B) Division of the Nigerian Police at Bukuru, Jos south last Wednesday.
According to Mr. Gonzuk, he had earlier reported the matter to their landlord and later to the village head, wishing the matter to be settled privately. However, the alleged rapist had failed to cooperate with the community leaders causing the victim’s father to go to the police.
He said that Mr. Edumun and his wife had threatened to kill his daughter.
He also explained why his family took action three months after the incident.
“My thought was that since she was preparing for her external exams (WAEC) it may affect her performance,” Mr. Gonzuk said.
He said he was seeking justice for his daughter to serve as a deterrent to others with such rapist tendencies
“This is child abuse. (Mr. Edumun) should face the wrath of the law accordingly,” Mr. Gonzuk said, who remarried after the victim’s mother died, said.
He said the suspect was arrested by the police on Wednesday and detained.
Several efforts to speak with the police at the station were the culprit was detained proved unsuccessful.
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