I saw the story in the Punch newspapers, headlined- Lagos pastor arrested for allegedly raping nine-year-old.
As a mother of many daughters, it irks me every time I see headlines like this. Upon reading, I discovered the rape had been happening for some time but the child in question, a nine-year-old, did not tell her mother about the abuse.
Sad but true as this happens many times; you ask why the victim isn’t telling anyone, particularly when they can talk. They mostly remain silent from fear of what the parent or guardian would do to them plus the fear that they might not even be believed because perpetrators are often people their parents respect.
Anyway, the mother of this nine-year-old, found out when she saw semen dripping down her daughter’s thighs as the girl slept. Mother hurriedly slapped daughter awake and the nine-year-old began to confess to being serially raped by the pastor!
The pastor, a married man with kids is a familiar and trusted face to both mother and daughter.
Mother hurried to the police station to report this assault. And before pastor could shout seven halleluyahs, he was cuffed by policemen who marched his sorry behind to the station.
I didn’t do it, pastor wailed as all lying rapists do.
His plea of innocence fell on deaf ears and perhaps to extricate himself, he told a story.
He said the nine-year-old child is no kid when it comes to sex. He said she was known to have been sleeping around before now and he claimed he was the one who went to plead on her behalf weeks before when the mother was beating her for having sex with yet another adult.
According to the bastard: ‘I saw the girl kneeling and raising a stone. She was crying. Her mother said somebody in her compound reported to her that some people had been making love to her in the compound many times…’
Banza!
And the girl was punished!
The subject here is a nine-year-old child being punished by her mother for ‘making love’ to several people in the compound.
Come first, what is her crime here? Shouldn’t we be calling it statutory rape, seeing the victim involved is a minor?
Second off, did the police pick up on this piece of info and treat with uttermost sense of responsibility like they do when an errant driver jumps the traffic light? Did they investigate this allegation on suspected neighbours and were these animals arrested?
How many others had taken advantage of this child?
After the rape tests carried out on the child, was she returned to this unfit mother? Why did she report the pastor and not her neighbours who had also raped her daughter?
It’s no wonder Pastor saw this as his cue to take his chances with the nine-year-old, he thought he would not be apprehended by the mother; after all, it’s the girl the mother will punish for the sex.
This is very distressing.
Then you ask one more question, was it poverty that made mother not get the so called neighbours in the compound arrested? Was she scared of them? Did she send her daughter to them as payment of some sort and they took extra advantage and she got pissed and so punished the girl instead? These things are true, you know. We hear of parents using their under aged daughters to pay rent by asking the landlord to have a field day with the child.
Strange but true.
No one knows but what is clear, is that this child, this nine-year-old is damaged goods; emotionally, physically, mentally and even spiritually. Perhaps the reason she didn’t tell her mother about the pastor was from fear of being punished again by the mother, after all, she was beaten the times the neighbours repeatedly raped her, why would she tell her mother a new predator is on the loose?
While I intend to follow up on this story, I feel pain for this child. I hope she finds peace, somehow. I hope she doesn’t end up plunging a knife through the heart of some young man in future.
I hope she doesn’t one day poison the mother or at the slightest provocation hurt someone.
I just hope…