A 50 year-old man, Vincent Uzor, is currently on the run after allegedly raping his 14-year-old daughter in Lagos.
According to PUNCH Metro, the victim was raped last week Tuesday in the Ebute Meta area of Lagos State where Uzor lived with his second wife. The victim’s mother died about seven years ago after which she started living with her grandmother.
However, when the old woman became plagued with ill health, she was said to have been taken to the Ogijo area of Ogun State, where she stayed with an aunt. But the aunt, three weeks ago, reportedly
sent her to her father in Ebute Meta, saying she wanted to travel.
Narrating her sad story to PUNCH, the Primary four young girl, pictured above, said her father defiled her while she was in the kitchen. She said:
“My mother died seven years ago. I did not know my father because I grew up with my grandmother. It was when I was 12 years old that I was told I had a father. Three weeks ago, my aunty told me I would stay with my father for a few days because she was travelling and did not want to leave me alone at home. That was how I went to stay with my father.
On Tuesday, around 6.30pm, my father asked me to warm the soup on the stove. He suddenly followed me inside the kitchen and shut the door. I thought he wanted to cane me, and I started begging him. Instead, he removed his clothes and pulled my skirt and paints. Then he had sex with me. It was painful and blood gushed out from my private parts. He then said he was sorry.”
The victim said her father gave her N500 for treatment after she complained of pains in her legs. Adding that he took her to a traditional doctor who prescribed some concoction for her.
“My father told me he wanted to travel. I used the money he gave me to buy recharge cards and I called my elder brother and some other people to tell them what happened to me,” she said.
However, before the police could arrive at the scene, Uzor was said to have fled the house. The victim was reportedly taken to Ogijo, where the matter got to the attention of the Ogun State Coordinator of the Centre for Defence of Human Rights, Mrs. Toyosi Bello.
Bello accused the police of trying to cover up the incident.
She said:
“The Denton Police Division wanted to muddle up the matter and I decided to take the case to Nigerians. This girl is almost an orphan and needs help, but the police are trying to compound her problems.”
The victim and Bello were later connected with a human rights organisation, Project Alert on Violence against Women. The Coordinator of the group, Mrs. Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, said the 14-year-old had been taken to the hospital for treatment.
She said:
“When she got here, we did a referral letter to Mirabel Centre, which is a subsidiary of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. Some medical tests were carried out on her and drugs were given to her. She is in our custody in the interim because she cannot go back to either her aunt or father. We discovered her aunt had been physically abusing her. We saw scars all over her body. The aunt then sent her to her father who further sexually abused her.”
Effah-Chukwuma said the group had petitioned the police authorities because the case was not given the attention it deserved, adding that the Denton Police Division had been “notorious in terms of how they respond to sexual abuse cases.”
A letter, dated December 4 and addressed to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Yaba, claimed that the policemen handling the case connived with Uzor’s second wife to rubbish it. It added that the Lagos State Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Women Affairs (Child Department) had been notified.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Kenneth Nwosu, told PUNCH that the police had commenced investigations, adding that justice would be served. He said:
“The case was reported at the station. The division has not closed the matter. It is presently under investigation and I am aware the father of the girl is not around. The matter is now at the SCID.”
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