Operatives of the Anti-Smuggling of Migrants (ANTISOM) of the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, Ekiti State Command, has apprehended a twenty-five year old man, Mr Fapohunda Joshua and a twenty-six year old miss Odetola Ibukunoluwa for alleged sexual assault on a thirteen-year old SS1 student. The accused and the minor victim are said to be residents of Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital.
A statement from the public relations unit of the NIS said, based on intelligence report by the officials of the agency on an incident of rape on 24th July, 2023, operatives of the Anti-Smuggling of Migrants (ANTISOM) unit of the NIS swung into action resulting in the arrest of the alleged culprits, Mr Joshua and Miss Ibukunoluwa, who have been living together as boyfriend and girlfriend, including the minor.
It was further alleged that Joshua and his girlfriend, Ibukunoluwa, connived to inflict sexual assault on the minor by drugging her with tramadol tablet which rendered the minor unconscious before Joshua had sex with her. Eventually, she was impregnated and taken to the hospital for flushing and evacuation of a dead foetus in the minor for twenty-five thousand at a private hospital.
According to the statement, during interrogation, it was discovered that Miss Ibukunoluwa was practicing oral sex and lesbianism with the minor, adding that the culprits confessed to the crime.
The Command has handed the case over to the Ekiti State Gender-Based Violence Management Committee, GBVMC.
Meanwhile, in an interview with newsmen,Fapohunda Joshua, an OND holder in Computer Science at the NIS Command, Ado-Ekiti, admitted impregnating the minor while she was staying with him and the girlfriend. “When we noticed that she was pregnant, we took her to the chemist store where we bought PT (pregnancy test item). After confirming that she was pregnant, we went to a private clinic. They scanned her and said that the pregnancy was incompleted. So the doctor said for us to save her life, we should pay #25,000 to evacuate the pregnancy”.
The girlfriend, Ibukunoluwa said her friendship with Joshua began since April this year. Asked what she knows about the victim, in her words: “She’s like my sister, she left her mother and came to be staying with us. When everything was going on, she told me that my boyfriend was sleeping with her. I reported the matter to her own mum and my own mum. As time went on, the girl complained of stomach ache and I thought it was her period that was coming, I then gave her herb to cure the stomach pain because that is what she used to take for her period”. But she said she didn’t see her period.
“It was at this point that we began to suspect pregnancy. She suggested that I buy PT (Pregnancy Test) instrument for her and after the test, it was confirmed that she was pregnant and I asked how come? It was then I took her to the chemist again and it was confirmed. She opened up that my boyfriend had been having sex with her.
In her confession, the victim, who described Ibukunoluwa as a friend to her sister stated that the issues beyond her control informed her stay with the lovebirds. The minor owned up that Joshua slept with her eight times which resulted in pregnancy.
As she explained, she did not know that she was pregnant. “It was Ibukunoluwa the girlfriend of Joshua who said I was pregnant, that she noticed I was becoming white. She advised me to go to a chemist store to buy PT (pregnancy test instrument). The test showed I was pregnant. With her boyfriend they took me to the hospital. The doctor scanned me and suggested that my womb should be flushed.
“We visited the hospital several times because the doctor asked us to be coming for treatment for it to heal well”.
The Comptroller, Nigeria Immigration Service, Ekiti State Command, Abdulraheed Ademola, has therefore urged the public and those indulging in the act to refrain.