Shaibu, married and has a child works with a private security company, while Idris, also works in another security company and lives with Shaibu.
The victim’s father died last year January and her mother, Mrs. Shade Williams, a petty trader is saddled with the responsibility of training Kehinde and her two siblings. They live in Oworonshoki, a suburb of Lagos State.
Kehinde, a pupil of a public school in the same neighbourhood has already registered and preparing for common entrance examination into one of the state’s secondary schools when the bubble burst that she was pregnant.
Unable to control her emotion, with tears strolling down her cheeks, Kehinde’s mother, narrated to Saturday Sun how she got to know that her 12- year old daughter was pregnant.
According to her, she thought it was a dream and when it finally dawned on her that it wasn’t a dream, she felt that the world was collapsing on her.
As a petty trader she leaves home between 8 and 9 am daily and returns between 7 and 8pm and so couldn’t notice the physiological development and changes in her daughter that suggested that she was pregnant. According to her, two women who are their neighbours drew her attention and asked her to ask Kehinde some questions.
To her, this unsolicited advice sounded bizarre and was almost peeved on why her neighbours should think in that direction, with a suspicion that they wanted to make a mockery of her.
According to her “I didn’t notice the change but had observed that her buttocks were getting fatter and I thought the food she was eating has started manifesting in her adding some flesh. Apart from the food she was eating at home, whenever she was going to school, I used to give her much money so that she would not be interested in what other pupils were buying or eating. I do everything to make her happy and comfortable.”
“Nothing like pregnancy ever came to my mind; I never imagined such because each time I asked her the last time she saw her monthly menstrual period, she told me, ‘last month.”
“Based on this suggestion from our neigbhours, the following morning I asked her to urinate into a cup and I took the urine sample to medical laboratory and the result was positive – that she was pregnant and I took her for pregnancy scan and the scan revealed that she was already six months pregnant and I nearly collapsed.” The cat let out of the bag
When the scale had fallen off Mrs Williams’s eyes and it was well established that she would soon be a grand mother, she asked Kehinde who was responsible for the pregnancy.
The beleaguered woman said she was thrown aback when her daughter opened up and started mentioning the names of their tenants as people who have violated her.
She said: “Kehinde mentioned Shaibu Isiaka, who is working with a security company and because of the uniform, the neighbourhood mistakes him for a policeman. He is married and has a child; he is now in prison custody. She also mentioned Idris, who lives with Shaibu in one room apartment, and also works in another security company. When the bubble burst, Idris ran away and we have been to his work place and we were told he has not reported for duty for some days. She also mentioned John Obah and Vincent Amaechi.
“All of them except Idris are in prison custody as we speak because we had to get them arrested and charged while we wait for the outcome of the case. I don’t know why these people should bath me with hot water mixed with pepper. Even when my husband was alive and now, these tenants are treated as members of the family. I usually help Shaibu’s wife with food and money. Sometimes when they don’t have anything to eat, the woman would come to me and I would give her some food items and money. See how they have treated me.
“My daughter told me that these men were raping her on my bed and their houses countless times. Immediately she comes back from school, if Shaibu or Idris was off duty, they would come to my room and start molesting her on my matrimonial bed. “For John and Vincent, one would go and after having his turn, he would tell the other to go that she would not tell her mother. That was how they defiled my daughter for many months and look at the result.”
The fear of what her mother would do to her prevented Kehinde from reporting her bitter experience in the hands of these men to her mother.
According to her mother, “ When I asked Kehinde why she didn’t tell me when these things were going on, she said she was afraid of what I would do to her since I was always warning her not to allow any man to touch her; that any day a man touches her and she gets pregnant that I would throw her out of the house; that she refused to tell me because she doesn’t have any where to go if I carry out my threat of throwing her out of the house.”
Saturday Sun asked Kehinde why she didn’t tell her mother; she corroborated what her mother said. According to her, her mother was always saying what she would do to her if any man touches her and “ I was afraid.”
Not knowing that her current status is a hindrance to her education, she was very eager to go back to school and play with her peers.
By the time she is delivered of the baby, the family is now banking on a DNA test to determine who among the four men is the father of the baby.
source>sun news paper
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