THE Oyo State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps has rearrested one Effiom Etowa, who allegedly defiled his three-year-old daughter in Ibadan, Oyo State.
The Point had reported that the suspect’s wife, Pauline Etowa, had raised the alarm, which led to his initial arrest.
The middle-aged woman had accused her husband, Essiom, of defiling their three-year-old daughter, saying the little girl was lying critically ill at the hospital.
Pauline, who spoke with our correspondent, alleged that her husband defiled their daughter on two occasions before admitting the crime.
Essiom was said to have been arrested by operatives of the NSCDC, following his wife’s report, but was later granted bail.
The troubled mother revealed that her daughter had been lying critically ill at a private hospital, Oni and Sons, noting that she could not urinate properly, owing to complications associated with the defilement.
Her husband was, however, rearrested by the Police after a publication by The Point on the defilement.
Mrs Etowa, while speaking with our correspondent, confirmed that the security operatives arrested him and kept him in their custody, pending when the courts would resume from recess.
Mrs Olubukola Adebiyi, President of JAKIN, a Non-Governmental Organisation, and an executive member of the Lagos State Chapter of the UNICEF Child Protection Network, confirmed the arrest of the suspect.
“He has been rearrested by the NSCDC. They have kept him in their custody for court to resume from recess. His fate will be determined by the court when they resume,” she said.
Explaining how she discovered the act, Pauline said she saw sperm on her daughter’s underwear and in her private part, adding that she took her to Adeoyo Government Hospital, where a medical examination confirmed the defilement.
She said, “In the first week of June, around 10.30pm, I was in the living room watching television. I was about to watch the Big Brother reunion. I wanted to use the toilet and I went inside. (My children sleep in the bedroom with their dad and myself). On getting to the bedroom, I found my daughter on the bed, but she was without her knickers. So I asked her father who was standing close to the girl: What happened? Why are this girl’s knickers on the bed? He could not give me a tangible answer.
“The next day, when it was time to have her bath, I opened her private part to check; she had been tampered with. I took pictures and sent them to my aunt on Whatsapp, and she said I should please keep it as a secret. Later, again on June 16, I had already asked my children to be sleeping in the second room (being a two-bedroom apartment). My younger sister lives with us.
“That day, I slept very late, around 1am. As I was working on some clothes, my husband was also asleep. But around 5am when I woke up, it was dark, and I looked for the torch. I saw that my husband was not lying in the position he was the night before. I asked him for the torch. He said it was in the living room. I asked what the torch was doing in the living room since we were in the bedroom and in the dark. He could not answer me.
“Then, around 10am, I took my daughter and my son to the bathroom, and lo and behold, when my daughter removed her trousers, the hole I saw there the first time had tripled. I just left the underwear and started shouting, Jesus, Jesus. I took her, I saw sperm in her private parts and I rushed to the general hospital. The hospital confirmed that my daughter’s hymen was broken and she was penetrated.
“The matter was then reported to the NSCDC, where my statement was taken, and my husband was arrested.”
The distraught mother said, since the incident, her daughter had not been able to hold urine and excreta.
“Then I noticed that something was not right with my daughter since the day of that incident. She kept peeing and peeing and peeing. My daughter cannot hold her urine. I kept washing her pants and underwear. Then I took her to a children hospital. They did a test and it was confirmed that my daughter had a UTI infection. We have been in this hospital for 10 days now,” she said.
When contacted, the father of the girl had refused to speak to our correspondent on the matter.
“I can’t say anything about her condition; the matter is in court,” he responded.
