Family Craves Justice For Girl Who Was Forced To Take Indian Hemp Before Being Raped

The Victim

A 23-year-old who was just returning from her aunt’s stall at about 10PM on August 28, 2016, met with what is likely to be the worst experience of her life at 106, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, around Pako Bus Stop.

According to PUNCH, she was allegedly given Indian Hemp to smoke by some men before they went ahead to rape her.

The victim’s aunt said: “I told her to wait so we could pack up together later in the evening. She did. But around 9.30PM when I was still not ready, she said she would go home. She had been sick, so, I thought it was better. Some minutes after 10PM, I packed up and left.”

However, when she got home, she was told that the victim had not yet returned.

This prompted the family to start a search for her.

While searching the streets, her two brothers found her at the scene of the incident with large patches of blood behind and in front of the skirt she was wearing.

“Her slippers were all torn, the dress she was wearing was heavy with blood. She was unsteady on her feet. She could hardly stand up,” one of them said.

Her brother told PUNCH that when he became frantic and started asking what happened to her, she could hardly talk.

“She said some men raped her. Two men now came out of the front of the house where I found her. One asked me what I was shouting about. He said, ‘Because she was raped, is that why you will not let people ‘hear word’? Is she the first person that will be raped here? After all, I gave her Igbo (hemp) and she took it.’

I was shocked. I could not believe that he had the confidence to tell me he was even the one who gave her Indian hemp. My sister said they forced her to take the Indian hemp and two of them raped her on a chair in front of a shop,” the victim’s brother said.

The victim told her family that the suspects grabbed her as she crossed the road, covered her mouth, took her to house number 106, and forced her to take Indian hemp three times before they raping her on a chair.

The two men who allegedly raped her were later identified as Wasiu and Monaco, the names they are popularly known by on the street, while the man who boasted of being the one who gave her the Indian hemp was identified as Olanrewaju Osinubi.

The victim’s brother said that while he argued with the man who came out, other men came out of the house and threatened to beat him up if he did not leave with his sister.

“While we were arguing there, I luckily saw a patrol van of policemen from the Dopemu Police Division passing by and I quickly approached them and explained how my sister was raped.

The policemen came down from their vehicle and because the crowd of boys in front of the house were threatening, one of the policemen cocked his gun and they all fled.

But, I immediately grabbed the one who said he gave her Indian hemp to smoke (Osinubi) before he could escape. The police took him and we all went to the station,” he said.

Wasiu and Monaco are currently on the run.

While at the station, it was learnt that the victim continued to bleed heavily as everywhere she sat was soaked with blood.

The police asked the family to take her to the Mirabel Sexual Assault Referral Centre for treatment that night.

When they got there at about 12:30AM, the centre was already closed. They were then told to take her to Ifako General Hospital, by officials at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, where the centre is located.

The officials said sexual assault cases are also treated there.

After the initial treatment there, the victim was again referred to the Mirabel Centre the following day where she was eventually given comprehensive treatment.

It is unclear whether the centre has sent the report of tests conducted on Judith back to the police as is usually the practice.

The victim’s brother told PUNCH that they became as bystanders the following day at the police station.

“Before we knew what was happening, a man had come and said he was the lawyer of the one that was arrested (Osinubi). I was shocked when the suspect and his lawyer demanded that the case be transferred to the Isokoko Police Division, Agege, instead. We who were the complainant had no say in the matter,” he said.

The case was eventually transferred to Isokoko and two female police officers were detached to follow the victim’s family home.

Again, the family said they were shocked when they got home and the officers told the victim to take them to where the incident occurred.

“She was sleeping when they came. She was still in a terrible state. The police brought the suspect to our home and told us to wake her up so that she could take them to where it happened. It was so ridiculous that they could make her go through that at that point. I was angry but we eventually agreed,” the victim’s brother said.

The victim’s aunt, who followed them to the scene of the attack, said they asked her (victim) to point to where it happened and she did.

“She showed them the place and even the chair on which she was raped. It was very wet as they had just washed off all the blood,” the woman said.

The family said the police, on Friday, September 2, only charged Osinubi to court for obstructing police work.

They said that with the way the police is handling the case, they fear that the victim might never get any justice.

The Lagos State Police Command spokesperson, SP Dolapo Badmos, when contacted, did not pick calls to her line.

The family approached an activist, Esther Ogwu of the Esther Child Rights Foundation, who said she has notified the Sexual Assault department of the Lagos State Ministry of Justice about the case.

“We expect that an urgent step would now be taken on this matter. This is not a case that the police should even think of sweeping under the carpet.

This case is not just about her, it is about other young women and girls who are in danger as long as those men are still on the loose. But I do not think the police have realised how terrible it must be for the victim that she may not get justice,” she said.