John Okechukwu, the saddened father of 11 year old Favour Okechukwu has narrated how his daughter was gang raped by four men and murdered in Eji
“When I got home on that Wednesday, my wife told me that she sent Favour on an errand and she is yet to return. I got home by 6 pm and she had sent her on an errand since 3 pm. I was really worried,” the father said.
Okechukwu said he immediately instructed his wife to check her at a trader’s shop down the street and her friends’ houses in the neighbourhood, but none of them saw her.
“Some of the parents of her classmates joined us in searching for her, and by past 8 pm, we returned to this place. I didn’t know what to do, my wife told me that we should hope on God maybe she would come back home and any hand holding her will release her.
“But for me, I was not satisfied. I gave her the key and turned back to continue to search for her. It was like somebody or a force was just carrying me to just be going to that direction, I was just going,” the worried father said.
Without any knowledge of where he was going or how he would see his missing daughter, Okechukwu said he trekked minutes away from the street they live before he saw a neighbor who told him a bad incident happened some streets away.
“Getting to that junction, I met someone that I know and is living on this street. He asked where I was going and I explained that I was looking for my daughter. The guy shouted that something just happened at Olanrewaju street that made everybody start packing before the police would come,” he said.
Okechukwu said the neighbour told him that a young girl was raped to death and he decided to follow him to the street.
“He showed me the house but when we got there, he said he couldn’t enter. I summoned courage and entered because the place was dark.
He added that he saw three occupants of the house discussing and he told them he was looking for his daughter and they pointed the room where the corpse of a young girl was lying.
“I saw the corpse, it was my daughter. They have stripped her, blood everywhere and she had died already, I started shouting like a mad person before a man from the compound ran after me and offered to join me to the police station because he has some information about it,” he said.
Okechukwu said on getting to the Ejigbo Police Division, some members of the house where the incident occurred were already there and speaking to an officer in Yoruba.
“We got in and they refused us when they heard that this was the man they raped his daughter. Thank God that my brother knows the DPO very well, he called her and introduced himself and she ordered us to come in,” the man said.
The enraged father said he narrated what happened to the police and corroborated with what the house occupant who followed him to the station said.
“The police invited the young man and others and the owner of the room where my daughter was found dead was lying that he doesn’t know anything about it and that they have been breaking into his room. The young man that followed us later confronted him and told him to tell the truth.
“He later told the police that he was not among the rapists but he knows them. The DPO asked for their names and he mentioned four names,” he narrated.
The perpetrators of the dastardly act against the 11-year-old girl are at large, while the owner of the room her body was found and a nurse who was an accomplice in the case are in detention. The nurse, whose identity is unknown, was called by the rapists to help save the life of the young girl when they noticed she was about to die.
The police are however, working around the clock to get the culprits arrested, the father said. He added that the Inspector of Police in charge of the case and the Divisional Police Officer have been supportive on getting the offenders.
Nigerians have called for stiffer punishments for rape cases in Nigeria, with a rise in rape cases being recorded in many parts of the country. The Nigerian Senate and States of House of Assemblies have been urged to enforce the Child Rights Act and enforce stricter punishments for rape offenders.
Lawmakers in Kaduna in September approved surgical castration as punishment for people convicted of raping children below age 14.
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