A 14-year-old girl has revealed how her father pounced on her and raped until she could no longer walk upright at the Oyigbo area of Lagos State.
The girl, simply identified Uzor, said her father raped her on December 2, 2014 at their home, 4 Akintunde Street, until she found it difficult to walk.
The girl said her father raped her around 6:30am after she went to live with him.
She explained that she had been living with an aunt at Ikorodu after the demise of her mother until her father came to take her away.
Within few days of living with her father, the man brutally raped her.
Fighting back tears, Uzor said: “I wanted to shout, but his weight was too much for me.
“My father is fat and I was struggling not to stop breath.
“I was struggling to push him off.”
According to Uzor, after her mother died, she went to stay with her mum’s elder sister at Ogijo area of Ikorodu.
The woman was expected to assist the girl in furthering her education, but she did not.
Uzor added: “My aunt did not enrol me in school.
“I used to hawk pepper and tomatoes for her.
“My father was not pleased that my aunt did not enrol me in school.
“He threatened to take me away.
“He eventually came and took me to his house.”
Recalling how she was raped, Uzor said: “I was in the room sleeping when my father called me to warm soup in the kitchen.
“Few minutes later, he called me to meet him in the bedroom.
“I thought he wanted to punish me when he called me because I’m always scared of him and my step mother.
“They treat me bad.
“Before I knew what was happening, my father had pushed me on the bed and pounced me.
“He tore off my pants and penetrated me.
“When he finally got up and left, I was bleeding from my private part seriously.
“I could not walk.
“But I managed to call the attention of an elderly woman in our street.”
The victim said that after the incident, her father left her on the bed and went away.
The woman she alerted about the incident cautioned her not to tell anyone.
The woman told Uzor, it was an abomination.
Uzor said: “Immediately I left the woman’s house, I went to a pay call centre to call Mrs. Toyosi Bello in Ogijo.
“I explained the incident to her.”
Bello, the Ogun State Coordinator for Centre for Defence of Human Right, said she was in Ogijo when she received the call from Uzor.
The following day, Bello went to Uzor’s father’s apartment.
Bello said: “I observed that the woman Uzor reported the incident to, is shielding her father from arrest.
“Some elderly men in the area begged me not to expose the matter to the public as that would damage the image of the little girl in future.
“The girl was immediately rushed to Federal Medical Centre.
“Unfortunately when we got there, the medical doctors were all on strike.”
Bello said the Uzor’s father has bolted.
The girl’s step-mother was arrested, but had since been released.
Uzor had been taken to Project Alert, a non-governmental organisation that takes care of rape victims.
The Executive Director of Project Alert, Efah Chukwuma, said: “We are taking the victim to Mirabel Medical Centre for proper medical attention, while she will stay in our shelter pending when the outcome of the investigation.”