A police officer has been accused of allegedly raping a 17-year-old girl in Lagos.
According to reports from City Round, the officer, who is attached to the Ogudu Police Station, Ojota area of Lagos was said to have raped the minor (name withheld) after he promised to help her retrieve her phone, which had been taken by ‘one chance’ robbers on June 16 while she, her grandmother, and her siblings were returning from Ikeja.
He reportedly offered assistance when she was recounting her experience to her mother at her shop by offering to track the phone and take the statement.
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The victim said;
“On June 29, officer Owolabi called my mum on her phone and told her he had arrested the person with my phone and my mum should send me to his police station and I went there. On getting there, I was told they made a mistake with the tracking, and that the person caught wasn’t the one with my phone.
“The officer sent his personal assistant to call me into his office and he showed me directions there. When I entered his office and greeted him, he replied and got up to lock the door and put the key in his pocket. I shouted, ‘Sir, why did you lock the door?’
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“He started trying to pull my clothes off and I shouted, then he brought out a gun, cocked it, and threatened to shoot me if I shouted. Then he began harassing me and when I struggled with him he hit me on the back of my head with the gun and raped me.
“I saw his phone ringing and the caller was my mum, but he told me since I didn’t have a phone with me, I should tell her I didn’t get to his office and from now on I should be reporting at his office by 12 pm every day during school break or while returning from school that he had been watching me for two years and now I just fell into his trap.”
Also speaking with City Round, the victim’s mother said she noticed her daughter was bleeding a day after and took her to a clinic where it was ascertained that she had been raped.
She also added that the police are trying to bury the case, on the ground that the suspect would soon be retiring.
“The suspect’s wife and the rest of his family have come to my shop to plead with me saying he would soon retire, but what about my daughter that was raped? Is it because I am a poor woman?
“The Area Commander of the station too invited me and pleaded with me to bury the case, now they are saying the suspect has fled and his whereabouts are unknown, but my daughter is distraught and has said she wants to commit suicide. My girl needs justice.”
Reacting to this incident following a letter sent by the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, said;
“The CP immediately directed the Gender Unit to commence an investigation and that is underway. There is no plan to cover up the allegation.”
