An Ibadan, Oyo State-based fashion designer, Esther Isaiah, on Wednesday accused her stepfather, John Dickson, of raping her and sexually abusing her younger sister.
Testifying in a Mapo Customary Court in Ibadan, Isaiah, 20, also alleged that her stepfather was was responsible for her childlessness.
She said: “Our stepfather started molesting me at age 12 and my younger sister whenever we visit our mother in her matrimonial home.
“Whenever my mother is not at home, my stepfather will threaten that he will kill me if I don’t allow him sleep with me.
“So, I allowed him in order to live.
“He raped me so many times.
“I never told my mother because I didn’t know what will happen, but I told my friends.
“He also raped my younger sister.
“She told me that our stepfather comes into the room where she sleeps with a mask and rapes her.”
Earlier, Dickson, who spoke through an interpreter, said he filed the divorce suit on grounds of abandonment.
He alleged that his wife, Mary, abandoned him for three years without any reason.
However, Mary countered her husband’s submission of abandonment when she described him as evil and an animal in human skin.
She said: “It is true that I left Dickson’s home.
“He raped my daughter, one of the two children I had before I married him.
“The girl was afraid to tell me what my husband did to her and she stopped visiting me.
“In Cross River, where I am from, it is a taboo for a man to sleep with a stepdaughter and her mother.
“Except a certain sacrifice is performed, the stepdaughter might never conceive and the mother will die.
“I am currently sick and need urgent spiritual deliverance.”
After listening to the testimonies, Chief Ademola Odunade, the court’s President, ordered all the parties concerned to ensure that they did the needful since it was a matter of life and death.
Odunade held that Dickson might be charged for a felony.
The arbitrator adjourned the case till October 15 for judgment.
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