An officer of
the Police Mobile Force
identified simply as Augustine who assaulted, tied and injured an 8-year-old
girl, Amarachi Abakwuru, at their Ketu neighbourhood has since disappeared into
thin air, even as the Lagos State Police Command keep mum over the
matter. THISDAY learnt that the victim was lured into the suspect’s house about
8pm on Thursday
Barely managing to
speak from her parched throat, the victim, who was saved by her sheer grit and
brilliance, said she never saw what was
coming till it happened.She said.....
“Mopol had sent me to
buy bean cake for him earlier on which I did. Later, as I wanted to go into our
apartment and sleep, he dragged me into his room. Then I heard my father
calling my name and I told him to allow me go answer him.Mopol told me to shut
up my mouth and the next thing, he covered my mouth with his hand and tied it
with a cloth. He also tied my neck and my hands. He then used a sharp iron and
hit me on the head. I started bleeding but I could not shout because he tied my
mouth.
When he heard my
parents looking and shouting for me, he pushed me under his bed. Later, he
locked the door and left me under the bed bleeding. I could hear my parents
shouting my name but I couldn’t do anything.
“Later, although I was
weak, I heard some people at the window and I heard my mother’s voice there. I
used my last strength and dragged my body till one of my legs came out from
under the bed. It was when they saw my leg from the window that they now broke
the door.I want the government to arrest Mopol. He hurt me. I thought the
police was my friend. Why did Mopol do that to me? I thought I would die.”
The victim’s mother,
Mrs. Nkiru Abakwuru, said the suspect was their next door neighbour at their
residence in Ketu.
“We have always been
friendly with him so I cannot explain what pushed him to treat my daughter this
way. “In fact, that night, Mopol came
back from a trip and we asked him about his car. He told us he had a collision
with another vehicle at the toll gate and so he had to park it there.
“While we were still
talking, he asked my daughter Amarachi to go buy some bean cake for him. When
she came back with some change, he asked her to use it and buy fried yam for
herself. She did but she didn’t finish it and gave the rest to me.
“Later about 8pm, she said she wanted to and sleep.
So while she went upstairs to sleep, I headed to the kitchen to wash the
plates. Few minutes later, my husband came back and asked for Amarachi and I
told him she went to sleep.Few seconds later, he told me she wasn’t in the
room. I wasn’t alarmed yet. We started searching for her and I remember we
asked Mopol three times and he said she didn’t enter his room.At that point, we
didn’t know he had already removed her clothes and tied her up and had also
broken her skull. We went to the police station
about 11pm and one of the officers came to the house with us.
He however refused to
break open the door because he said there was a possibility the girl was not in
the room. He then went to the window and pried it open. It was then we saw my
daughter’s leg under the bed. We broke down the door and rushed her to two
hospitals, where they rejected her because of the severity of her head
wound.But before then, Mopol fled the house and when I called him, he said he
went to smoke. Up till now, he hasn’t come back. His mother even called me
today to ask which hospital we were in. I heard the son’s voice in the
background and when I asked for her location in Alapere, she switched off the
phone.”
The victim’s father, Mr. Patrick Abakwuru, who
also spoke, called on the police and the state government to come to their aid
in terms of treatment for the teenage girl.
According to him, due
to the severity of the head wound, the hospital had concluded plans to transfer
them to another hospital (name withheld) for better treatment.
When THISDAY visited
the hospital where the girl was admitted,
she was seen writhing in pains on the bed, with a neck brace to support
her neck and plaster to cover her broken skull.
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