Sordid stories of rape and defilement of young girls by men, some old enough to be their grand fathers, are shocking and alarmingly rampant in Akwa Ibom State.
The cases are mindboggling and the numbers are huge. According to police sources, at least seven cases are reported every week and this could be the a tip of ythe iceberg given the unreported cases which are said to be ten times more than those that are recorded by the police.
What is sickening is that some of the sexual assaults are often perpetrated by fathers against their daughters, uncles against their nieces and in some cases, church leaders against underage girls.
Many times, the perpetrators use the threat of traditional sanctions to prevent their victims from going to the police to lodge complaints.
For instance, a self-styled prophet of a new generation church reportedly prophesised that a little girl was a witch and lured the parents to bring the child to his house to exorcise the “demons.”
After sending the parents away, the man of God defiled the six-year-old girl.
Another pathetic case was that of a 77-year-old man and his friend of same age from Ibesikpo Asutan who jointly raped a 14-year old with one of them claiming that the girl was his wife.
The 77-year-old man claimed that he found the girl at the village market square and took her home as his wife where she was repeatedly raped.
It was gathered that when the man left his residence in search of his daily bread, his friend went to the house and raped the girl repeatedly.
One day, the man came back and saw his friend raping the 14-year-old girl in his house and a fight ensured which attracted the attention of the neighbours who reported the matter to the police.
Another jaw-breaking case is that of a father who raped his two daughters repeatedly and often used to have a two-some with the two (daughters).
Ukeme Udofia of Itumbang in Uruan Local Government defiled his two daughters aged 13 and 9 years for three years, claiming that he did so to test his malfunctioning manhood.
Trouble started when the father saw the daughter with another man and got angry that the daughter was cheating on him. When the matter was reported to the police, Udofia claimed his penis was dysfunctional, adding that he was only ‘managing’ it with his daughter.
When the man was arrested, the second daughter begged that the matter should not be taken to the court because she was in love with his father.
It was gathered that the matter was brought to the attention of the police by office of the Governor’s wife through her pet project, Family Empowerment and Youth Empowerment Programme.
According to the investigation, the most pathetic appears to be the one in which a man placed an advertisement in local newspaper claiming that he was looking for cooks.
Joseph Sunday of Obot Ideng in Ibesikpo Asutan, 46 years, asked people to apply for the position in Ewet Housing Estate, a high brow housing estate in Uyo, the state capital.
According to the investigation, a lady responded to the advertisement but her husband prevented her from taking the job, saying she whould not be able to combine with her household chores.
The lady instead asked her sister to take up the offer. Joseph, a father of three took the girl to Etinan, about 20 kilometres from Uyo and kept her in an apartment where he raped the girl for more than 27 times from Friday to Sunday.
After the assault, he took the girl to the police station claiming that the girl was after his life. It was after further interrogation that the truth was known as he accepted that he made love to her eight times between Friday and Sunday when he took her from Uyo to Etinan.
According to the findings, the victim after being threatened by the perpetrator and his family pleaded that the matter should not be taken to court but it was revealed that she only changed her mind when the police threatened to charge her to court as an accomplice. The offender has since been arrested.
Glory Edet, commissioner for women affairs, described the growing incidence of Gender-Based Violence as a tsunami that should be checked and accused security agencies of often release GBV offenders without charging them to court.
Edet said 15 convictions have so far been obtained against GBV offenders. She did not state the period in which the convictions were made.
And the cases are alarming. For instance, a girl who went for her industrial attachment in a company was gang-raped by three men who forced her to swear not to report the sexual attack to the police.
But the girl whose name was withheld was bold enough to damn all consequences to go to the police and reported what she went through in the hands of the randy men. Further investigation showed that two of the men have been picked up by the police while the third is the run.
Odiko Macdon, spokesman for the Akwa Ibom State police command blames the growing cases of rape and defilement in society, saying there is an urgent need to re-identify the role of morality in the society.
“The people seem to be morally bankrupt. They continue to commit these atrocities when a lot of them have been arrested. We are not arresting on our oars, the number of those arrested over these crimes show the decades of the society,’’ Macdon, a superintendent of police said.
According to him, many of the offenders have been charged to court, some convicted and many under investigations, adding that the police are doing their best, maintaining that it is high time all hands be on deck to fight the scourge of rape and defilement in the society.
ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, Uyo
