How Girl, 14, Was Rescued From Rapist Policeman in Asaba

... After Being Molested For 6 Days

Apolice corporal last week allegedly abducted and severally raped a 14-yearold girl in Onitsha, Anambra State, Daily Trust on Sunday has learnt.

Corporal Garba Barau, who is originally serving under Mopol 7, Sokoto was posted on a special assignment to Anambra State, where he abducted the 14-year old girl, kept her under his custody and raped her several times for a period of six days.

Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that the girl (names withheld), left Asaba, Delta State to Onitsha to buy wares about a fortnight ago.

However, the girl, whose parents are originally from the North and is residing at Cable Point in Asaba, missed her way and stumbled on the policeman.

Apparently sensing that she was lost, Barau, who met the stranded girl, tricked and took her to the police barracks, where he lives.

The Admin Officer of a human rights group, My Body My Right, Lawal Imam, who narrated the story to Daily Trust on Sunday on telephone said the policeman kept the 14-year-old in his apartment for six days and constantly raped her throughout the period.

“After deceiving her that he was taking her home, he went with her to their barracks where he locked up the underage in a room and instructed police guards not to let her leave,” he said.

The girl was “severely damaged”, while in captivity, it was learnt.

Imam, who is an uncle to the victim, said the girl’s parents were disturbed and confused during the six days until when the victim made contact with them through the captor’s phone.

He said the parents conducted checks on Barau’s telephone number, using the truecaller application, where all his details were collected.

Because the girl did not know her way around Onitsha, she was unable to give the direction of the barracks. Barau was eventually traced when the wife to the younger brother of the victim posed on phone as an unmarried young woman. She then appealed to him to accommodate a girl, whom she was sending on an errand to Onitsha, for some days, and he gladly accepted..

“My brother’s wife called him and requested that he accommodated her unmarried sister who was going to Onitsha on a business trip,” he said, adding that “he became very excited about it and gave away his location at a checkpoint in Upper Iweka, where the girl would meet him.”

He was traced to the check point by the girl’s family. Imam narrated further that the case was reported at the Opookpoko Police Division, where the Divisional Police Officer, whose name was not given, is also a Northerner.

He said the police then made frantic efforts to bury the matter by appealing to the girl’s parents to allow it die. Initially, Imam said, the parents had wanted to accede to the appeal, but they later opposed the suggestion.

“They promised to visit the girl at the hospital where she was admitted but they did not,” he said.

Another member of the girl’s family told Daily Trust on Sunday that the police corporal has been begging for pardon, to save his job.

But when contacted, the Anambra State police spokesperson, Nkeiru Nwode, denied knowledge of the incident, saying, “I am hearing that from you for the first time. Nothing like that happened”.