Parents refuse N25,000 after eight year-old daughter’s rape

Firstclass newsline learnt that a girl of eight years has explained
how she was forcefully raped by their 48-year-old neighbour, Mr. Peter
Christopher, one afternoon in the building her family shared with
another tenant.
The raped victim, Blessing (fake name), explained to a source that on
Thursday, June 18, 2015, she was about to enter her parent's apartment
when, Christopher, a carpenter, whose lives just two doors away from
their apartment, dragged her into his room, locked the door and
defiled her.
Firstclass newsline had been informed about the girl's case by a human
rights activist, who felt concerned about the pressure being put on
the her family to drop the case. But when a source tracked down the
girl's family, they were reluctant to share the story as they said
they did not want to be seen as "being disobedient to pastors and
elders who asked us to leave the matter to God."
Blessing was a jovial girl, she smiled a lot. But when it was time to
tell the story of what she went through. Her face creased into a frown
as tears streamed down her face.
Her elder sister urged her on to tell everything that happened.
Blessing said Christopher's wife had gone for a wedding programme that
day. He was alone in the house.
"I was outside playing before but as I came in and was about to open
our door, he moved near me and dragged me by hand into their room.
"He locked the door and pulled down my panties. He then put his
'thing' inside me. That was the only time he did it."
Blessing's mother explained how she found out about the deflowering of
her daughter.
She said, "I did not know anything until the night when she told me
that her private part was hurting her. I did not suspect anything and
she did not tell me anything.
"I rubbed Vaseline on her to ease the pain but the following day when
I wanted to bathe her, I realised that she was bleeding. I then
suspected that somebody had been touching my daughter.
"As soon as I asked who had been touching her, she told me that it was
our neighbour. He is even older than my husband!"
Christopher has a daughter of his own, who is in the same age group as Blessing.
He was arrested and detained at the Agbado Police Division, while the
girl was taken for test and treatment.
While Christopher was in police custody, he continued to deny that he
ever touched the girl. But Blessing said he had no reason to lie while
her parents said they believed their daughter.
However, after the pressure of numerous pleas from pastors and
landlords in the area became too much, the girl's parents were forced
to write a letter to withdraw their case.
In order to reduce the tension generated on the case, their landlady
also signed an undertaken on Christopher's behalf, and agreed to pay
the sum of N25,000 in five instalments to Blessing's parents.
"I just don't know what that money is for because I have refused to
take it. Is it for my daughter's treatment or compensation? If it is
for treatment, what I spent on her treatment, tests and drugs is even
more than that," the girl's 41-year-old father said.
The source went in search of Christopher on Wednesday to get his side
of the story. The fair complexioned man courteously offered a source a
chair but his attitude changed instantly when asked if he indeed raped
the girl.
He demanded to know who notified the source about the case. But when
asked how that affected the allegations brought against, he refused to
say anything further.
"If you cannot give me the name of the person who made the allegations
against me, I have nothing to say
Firstclassnewsline.net