A 19-year-old lady, Fatima Usman has revealed that her 52-year-old father Usman Momoh took her virginity at age 12 on the floor in their kitchen in Owo area of Ondo state. Fatima had in a viral video said that her father had been sleeping with her ever since while her mother refused to do anything whenever she reported to her.
According to her “My father would always threaten to kill me while holding a knife if I ever tried to expose him.
Akeredolu’ s wife intervene
Meanwhile, the wife of the governor, Mrs Betty Anyanwu Akeredolu has waded into the matter and sent a delegation to the family of the victim. The delegation was led by the Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Gender Research and Documentation, Mrs Temitope Daniyan who was accompanied by officials of the Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA.
Mrs Akeredolu’s intervention reportedly led to the re-arrest of the suspect who is a Gardner in a tertiary institution in the state.
Police in the state had released the suspect after family members said they would settle the matter and that some rituals would have to be performed.
Victim narrates her ordeal
Speaking with newsmen, the victim said, “he normally woke me up in the middle of the night in our room and would take me to the kitchen to have sex with me. He usually held a knife to threaten me.”
Fatima said that whenever she made an attempt to tell her mother, she wouldn’t listen and the abuse kept coming regularly until last December when she decided to run away from home.
She pointed out that anytime her father woke her in the middle of the night and she refused, she would sleep outside their apartment till daybreak while her mother wouldn’t show concern to ask for the cause of her action.
Fatima who just finished her Senior Secondary school explained that her father had made it a tradition to sleep with her before paying her school fees or fending for her needs.
She further accused him of attempting to do the same with her younger sister who is 17years old.
The younger sister, Jemima confirmed this to the delegation sent to the family by the governor’s wife.
Jemila said her father once woke her up in the middle of the night and attempted to sleep with her but she refused and reported to her mother who scolded him not to try such again.
The suspect attempted suicide—Victim’s aunt
The victim’s aunt, Mrs Diamond, said the suspect, who is a gardener at the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic Owo, attempted suicide immediately after he confessed to the crime before his arrest
“He bought all the items for the ritual and they were taken to the village with a warning that the girl would never live under the same roof with him”.
I’m not aware of all this—Mother of victim
The 39years old mother of the girl, however, claimed ignorance of the allegation when she met with the delegation.
l slept with my daughter only once—Suspect
Fatima’s father, Usman Momoh has admitted sleeping with his daughter but only once. Momoh, while being transferred to the Ondo State Police Command headquarters said he had sex with his daughter only once. He asked the society to forgive him as he had realised his mistake. Momoh stated that he didn’t know what came over him when he committed the act.
The Chairperson of Ondo Women Lawyers (FIDA) Barr. Bola Ogundadegbe told journalists that Momoh’s prosecution rested with the police after conducting an investigation
Ogundadegbe said the victim would be given psychological counselling to enable her to come out of her current state of depression. “We are going to give her psychological support. She needs our support morally because she is not stable”, she said
The case won’t be swept under the carpet- Police
Police spokesperson, Tee Leo Ikoro said that the suspect has been rearrested noting that “this wasn’t the type of case that could be swept under the carpet. We will do everything possible within our means and legally to ensure that the man is prosecuted and the outcome will be known to everybody because I have listened to the girl and I think it’s pathetic. I was told that the man has been brought to the station because he was first granted bail”.
Ikoro said “proper arrangements were ongoing to transfer the accused to the State Criminal Investigative Department.
