By Rebecca Ejifoma
The Tibunu Magistrate Court has remanded Michael Chukwuemeka Chukem, 27, in Ikoyi Prison for brutally and aerially raping four of his girlfriend’s nieces and a neighbour’s daughter, at the Oshodi area of Lagos.
The suspect was arrested by the Adeniji Police State in Victoria Island, after one of the victims confided in her mother.
The five children were aged 11, 10, seven (the neighbour’s daughter) six and four years.
According to the rescuer and Coordinator of Ben Bruce Foundation, Miss Ore Olu-Adebiyi, who was fully on ground to witness the case, when one of the victims (the six-year-old) saw him at the court, she cried as she shivered with fear.
“The judge quickly took the children into his chambers for questioning and was apparently convinced that they were not telling lies, coupled with the medical report from Mirabel Centre as proof,” Olu-Adebiyi said.
The medical reports after examination from Mirabel Centre showed that the six and four-year-old girls were defiled through their vaginas and her anus, while the seven, 10 and 11-year-olds were abused through their vaginas only.
Having read the medical report and the confession of the minors, the judge denied the suspect, bail, thereby remanding him at the Ikoyi Prisons pending his next court appearance.
Olu-Adebiyi added that, “outside the courtroom, the suspect shouted at the little girls, calling them liars; that they would all die. He also cursed my colleague, Mary-Anne and I.
“He said we organised girls to tell lies against him. The prison wardens cautioned him but that was after he threatened to deal with me when he comes out of prison.”
Olu-Adebiyi added, “While Chukem’s mum called one of my team members a liar, we took the children into the bus because they got terrified on seeing him. The mother keeps raining curses on me whenever we go to court.
“Not minding the gravity of crime he has committed, Chukem boldly told me that if he used his six-inches sexual organ on the girls, that they would not be able to stand up or walk for three days.”
On his part, the alleged serial rapist, who was said to have carried out this abusive act at night while the girls’ parents slept, was generally arrogant and unrepentant even in court.
On how he was able to have all the girls, Olu-Adebiyi narrated: “One of the girlfriend’s sisters had financial challenges, so she asked her daughter (age 11) to go and stay with Chukem’s mother at Ikorodu.
“Because it was stressful for the suspect to go to Festac daily from Ikorodu, the girlfriend pleaded that he stay with her siblings at Oshodi during the week and return to Ikorodu at the weekend.”
According to the family of the victims, Chukem was sleeping in the sitting room, where the children were sleeping, too.
His alleged modus operandi was to rape the three girls plus the neighbour’s daughter during the week and then go back to Ikorodu and continue with the 11-years-old at the weekend
The case will be at the Tinubu Court on September 27 this year for hearing.
