When
12-year-old Love’s parents handed her over to her aunt, Mrs. Ijeoma
Joseph, her mother’s sister, they had believed she was going to Lagos
State, not just acquire an education, but possibly to get a better life.The parents never bargained that their little girl would become a sexually violated victim. Judging from the cards on the table, the father of five, Mr. Kingsley Anyanwu, who is alleged to have defiled Love, may very well get away with the crime. Elder brother of Anyanwu, who identified himself as Chris, said there was no way his brother could have raped Love because the suspect is blind.
Chris had also asked: “Where’s the pant the girl wore on the day she was raped and where are the bloodstains to prove she was raped?” Joseph, a widow with three kids, said she knew she was battling with a rich family in her quest for justice, thus she decided to enlist the assistance of Network on Police Reforms in Nigeria (NOPRIN), a non-governmental organization. Joseph said of Anyanwu: “They’re just using blindness as an excuse to cover his crime! This is a man who typed an address on his phone and sent to me. He walks about the house and goes out alone.
He can cook without help. The truth of the matter is that one of his eyes is bad, but the other is okay.” Love said she had only worked for the family, located at the Maza-Maza area of Mile 2, Lagos for six months before the incident. Joseph said she was still in shock over the matter. She also alleged that Anyanwu was a serial rapist. Her words: “The mother of Kingsley said that 10 house maids had come and gone before Love. She said she didn’t know what was happening.
God used Love’s case to expose what Kingsley had been doing. His mother confirmed it. At a point, the old woman started crying. Kingsley also started begging for peace.” Joseph said she brought Love from the village under the instruction of her parents, who were too poor to send her to school. He said they charged her to give the girl out as house help, but with a clause. “The parents said the person must send her to school.
Love was not to stay with anybody for money, but education.” Joseph said she gave Love to Maureen, (Anyanwu’s sister) thinking she was a member of their church.
It was later she discovered Maureen only came to the church to get a house help for her aged mother, Mrs. Anywanwu. She was not really a member of the church. Speaking with our correspondent at their Ikeja home, Love recounted: “I was washing plate on that day when Uncle Kingsley called me.
He said that I should come and read something on his phone for him. I came to read it. He held me down and raped me. The only person at home on that day was the old woman, Uncle Kingsley and I. He can read, I don’t know why he called me. He called me into his room. The old woman was inside her room. “He held me down and pulled off my pant. I shouted and cried. Later when I ran out crying, the old woman saw me.
She asked me why I was crying, but I didn’t answer her. I ran away and later went to church where they were having a vigil. I spent the night there.” A visibly livid Joseph said Love was brought back home by the landlord of the building where Mrs. Anyanwu resides the next day. “The landlord saw Love on the street the following day and took her home. Apparently, she told them what happened. Instead of taking her to a doctor, they beat her.”
Joseph said she was surprised when she got a phone call, from a stranger, a woman who introduced herself as Maureen’s sister, telling her that Love ran away from home. She said she knew something was wrong for the girl to have run away because she had been living with the family for almost six months and she had received no complaint.
Joseph also recalled that on the fateful day, she had a nightmare, where a strange man was attempting to rape her. She narrated: “When I woke up, my thought, for reasons I couldn’t understand, went straight to Love. I called Kingsley; I asked about Love, he said she was fine. I asked him about his mother, he said she was fine. I told him to hand the phone over to his mother. While we were still chatting, the credit on my phone finished.
When Maureen’s sister called me, she said Love ran away from home and went to church to sleep.” According to Joseph, for most of the months Love lived with the family, they did not buy her any change of clothes and refused to enroll her in school as agreed. It was after she threatened to take Love away from them, that they enrolled her in school.
It was that same month that Love was allegedly raped. Remembering how she gave the girl to Maureen, Joseph said: “I got to know Maureen through our church bulletin. I thought she was a member. I didn’t know she came from outside to put vacancy on our bulletin. It was after I had given my niece to her, that I noticed she stopped coming to church. I asked if she was a member or just came only to place her vacancy.
She said she was not a member.” Joseph said she would have loved to take care of Love’s education, but the girl’s parents knew how burdened she was with the care of her own kids, thus they made her promise to give Love out.
Maureen told her that the girl ran away because she was scolded for wasting food. Joseph had pressed Love to know why she was suddenly a child who wasted food. It was then the girl, crying told her what happened. She also begged her never to let her parents know what befell her because she felt, “they would be ashamed of her.”
Joseph said: “She didn’t even want to tell me. She told me that it was not food. She said she was raped by Kingsley.” Joseph said after the shattering news, she had examined the girl and discovered she was badly damaged. Love was also stinking. “You wouldn’t have been able to stay close to her.
It was the drugs they gave her at hospital that stopped the stench.” She took Love to The Mirabel Centre, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), for medical examination. In the medical certificate, dated June, 26, 2014; one Dr. Sodipo Olarenwaju interviewed Love. The doctor noted: “The perpetrator who is the brother of the person she was staying with, vaginally raped her on the 20th of June and following a repeated attempt, she ran away.”
Under column for physical injuries, the doctor noted: “Healed scars from penis injuries noted as in body chart.” The general findings states that there was laceration and whitish discharge noted from the vagina. In general conclusion, the doctor states: “Healing lacerations in hymen are suggestive of penetrative vaginal injury.” Joseph said she had immediately called Maureen. “I told her what Love said.
She started abusing me. She said that if I needed money, I should have told her so that she would have given me money to eat; instead of lying that Love was raped. I told her she was wicked. “According to Love, when she shouted, the man used his hand to cover her mouth, so that nobody would hear her shouting.
She ran away out of fear. When the old woman said 10 girls had come and gone, I told them that they didn’t want to know the truth about their brother and son.” Attempts made to get Anyanwu proved abortive as his phone was permanently switched off. Our correspondent called Maureen, but she said the questions should be directed to Anyanwu.
A text was sent to Anyanwu, leading to Chris calling. He said Joseph was a ‘possessed woman,’ adding that he “dares the woman to take the matter to court.” He further said that Joseph was being ‘pushed by one Okechukwu who calls himself “a human rights activist.” According to him, the human rights activist and his cronies were asking for N1.5 million from his family as damages.
He added: “My brother Kingsley is blind! It was due to his blindness that police at Festac and Satellite Police stations refused to detain him. They even insulted the woman, calling her a wicked woman. Since June that incident happened she had been running from one place to another.
If she wants justice, let her go to court!” With the help of NOPRIN, the matter was taken to the Satellite Police Station and Kingsley was arrested. When NOPRIN felt the case was dragging and suspecting an alleged foul play on the part of policemen handling the matter, the organization demanded the case be transferred to the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID), Panti, Yaba.
But the fight for justice was just beginning, as Joseph said that the suspect’s lawyer told her to forget the case and go home with N100, 000 which the family promised to pay her. “The lawyer said I wouldn’t win the case in the court. The lawyer said the court would ask me for the pant Love worn on the day she was raped,” said Joseph.
Joseph said that on the fateful day Love was raped, she ought to have been in school, but the people she was staying with, refused to let her go to school. “If she had gone to school on that day, this wouldn’t have happened,” lamented Joseph. National coordinator for NOPRIN, Okechukwu Nwanguma said he was doing everything humanly possible to ensure the case was taken to court, to serve as deterrent to the likes of Anyanwu.
He however, said that if the suspect wishes to settle out of court, Love will accept nothing short of over a million naira. Nwanguma recalled that Love was initially examined at a Health Centre at Adeniji Jones which confirmed that she was raped/defiled and then referred for expert management.
“But despite this report being sent to the Police by MIRABEL Centre which facilitated the medical exam at LASUTH and provided her the initial medical treatment, investigation into the matter appears to be stalled as nothing has been heard from the police,” railed Nwanguma.
According to Nwanguman, the last NOPRIN heard of the case was when, “we inquired from the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) at SCID and was told the police investigators went to the residence of the accused and interviewed his aged mother who was present and heard when the girl was screaming as she was being allegedly sexually abused by Kingsley Anyanwu. “The victim’s aunt said the police took photographs at the scene which she paid for and later brought copies to the police.
The police later said they will invite her and the accused man’s family for ‘settlement’, but she is yet to hear from them.” Police spokesman, Mr. Kenneth Nwosu said that the case has been investigated and case file now with the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP). He added: “I understand that the suspect is visually impaired. I can’t say if he’s blind totally. I, however, know that DPP’s advice will determine whether the case would be prosecuted or not.”
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