…says I’ll marry her, if allowed
A 31-year-old boat operator, Ayo Festus, has allegedly defiled a teenager, Aina Mulikat Babalola, in Igbogbo, Ikorodu, Lagos.
The suspect allegedly had forcible carnal knowledge of the victim while she was working for her guardian at a shop on Solawon Street.
Our correspondent learnt that the matter came into the open when Mulikat, 19, was found writhing in pains after Festus allegedly raped her.
The victim, who claimed Festus must have used some diabolical means to overpower her, said she had on several occasions in the past, refused sexual advances from the suspect, saying that on the day he allegedly raped her, things happened so fast that she could not still comprehend.
Narrating her ordeal, Mulikat said, “I go to my guardian’s shop every Saturday to assist her with sales and to take care of her children. Every time I was alone in the shop, Festus would pretend that he came to play with the children. He would then start making love advances to me, which I always rejected.
“He kept pressurising me and one day, I got fed up and sprayed Otapiapia (local insecticide) in his eyes and he left. The following Saturday, while I was in the shop, he returned and I asked if what I did to him the last time was not enough to deter him. I then got hold of a knife and threatened to stab him. He said he knew what to do to me and he left.”
The victim added that the next Saturday, she was at her guardian’s shop as usual, when Festus came, grabbed her from behind and push her into his room and immediately had sex with her, as she found herself helpless and unable to put up any resistance to him.
“He took me inside the house, pushed me on the bed and raped me. I was a virgin. I could not tell my guardian because I was afraid of what her reaction could be,” the 19-year-old student said.
She further said that she could not return home on time due to the several rounds of sex the suspect had with her.
“I suspect that he hypnotised me. I want the government to teach him the lesson of his life because I’m not his first victim. He has destroyed the lives of many other girls like me. We are not in any relationship and I’m not his girlfriend,” Mulikat added.
The victim’s guardian, who simply identified herself as Iya Aliyah, told our correspondent that the suspect, who resides in the same building where the shop is located, forcibly took the teenager into a room, where he allegedly defiled her.
Iya Aliyah added that she started suspecting something was amiss when she saw the victim lying on the bed and writhing in pains, but kept mute when she asked what had gone wrong with her.
“I was angry and was about to beat her up, when a man intervened and interrogated her. That was when she opened up. From her account of the incident, I was scared the man hypnotised her. I took her to an auxiliary nurse, who ran some tests on her and confirmed that she had been deflowered,” she alleged.
But the man at the centre of the alleged rape controversy, Ayo Festus, has continued to claim that they both mutually agreed before he had sex with the victim, adding that she was his girlfriend.
Festus claimed that he had evidence of an existing relationship between him and the victim, including a love letter she once wrote to him.
The suspect, however, pledged to take the alleged rape victim as wife.
Festus said, “I have spoken to the girl’s mother (guardian) to forgive me. I have sent my Landlord and younger brother to her as well. I cannot lie that I did not do it, but how the girl suddenly turned her back against me is what amazes me. She is my girlfriend.
“It was only once that I slept with her and that was when I deflowered her. It happened in my house and she was not angry. I promise to marry her because I met her as a virgin, which is something rare for a girl of her age. I give her
money.
“It is a lie that she sprayed insecticide on me or threatened me with a knife. I have a good relationship with her mother (guardian). After deflowering her, she even bought a wrist watch for me and gave me a love letter. She said she had decided that whoever deflowered her, would marry her and I accepted.”
