December 2, 2014 was a sad day for Mrs. Bilikis Balogun.
That day, she learnt that her innocent nine-year-old girl,
Nofisat, had been sexually assaulted by their 30-year-old
neighbour, Ikechukwu Obasi, while she was in the market.
“He has fled his apartment since the incident. But I
just want him to face justice and get punishment for
what he did to my daughter,” she said.
“I have never thought that the man could do that to
my daughter. He was such a friendly person in our
compound. All I know about him is that he is a
‘Yahoo-Yahoo guy’ (a description for young men who
specialise in internet fraud).
According to Bilikis, she was in the market when her
daughter came crying, and told her the story
about how their neighbour took advantage of her at their
83, Aina Street, Pako Aguda home, in Surulere, Lagos.
PUNCH reports that Nofisat, a quiet and shy girl, whose
eyes showed the painful memory of the experience she had
gone through, told their correspondent that she did not
suspect anything when Ikechukwu came into the room
where she was reading in their apartment and gave her a
N1,000 note to go and buy food for him. She said:
“I bought the food and took it to him. But because
the food vendor did not give me back N850 change,
he said I should go back and collect it. When I brought
the change back to him, he locked the door. He then
used a cloth to cover my mouth and I could not
shout. He then carried me to the bed and did it. When
he finished and I was bleeding, he said I should not
tell anybody.”
Later that afternoon, the girl narrated what Ikechukwu did
to her to another resident of the compound, who spotted
her crying in front of Ikechukwu’s room. The neighbour told
her to go and report the incident to her mother in the
market.
But by the time they got back, Ikechukwu had locked his
room and fled. He has not been seen since then.
Ikechukwu’s phone number has not been available as well.
However, PUNCH checked his Facebook page with the
name Eyekay Da Stika Obasi, where he posted photos up
until January 2, 2015. He had yet to respond to a message
sent to him as of the time of filing this report.
Ikechukwu’s Facebook page states that he attended the
University of Lagos and studied Psychology even though
this could not be verified as a result of the fact that he did
not state when he graduated.
The case was reported at the Aguda Police Division,
Surulere, but the police said they had been unable to take
any action because the culprit had fled.
However, Ikechukwu’s family had approached Nofisat’s
family, pleading to pay monetary compensation to settle
the matter.
“How can they tell me they want to pay N40,000 so
that I would forget my daughter was raped? All I want
is justice for my daughter. They have refused to
produce the man,” Nofisat’s mother said.
When PUNCH spoke with the investigating police officer in
charge of the case, he explained that he was still on the trail
of Ikechukwu.
“We cannot refer to the case as a rape, it is
defilement. But in the meantime, the two families are
trying to settle. I have asked the family of the victim
to come to my office but they have not come,” the
IPO, who pleaded anonymity, said.
Child Rights Activist, Mrs. Esther Ogwu, has called upon the
police to do more than just tell the family of the suspect to
produce him. She said:
“The police should do a thorough job of tracking
down the young man. Who knows the kind of fetish
thing he might have done to the girl? This is a lesson
to parents to be wary of neighbours they leave their
children alone with.” CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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