I was abducted, raped by traditional healer, teenager testifies

 

A teenager (name withheld) on Tuesday narrated before an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court, how she was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a traditional healer who was to treat her father.

Advocate.ng reports that the 17-year-old testified as the first prosecution witness at the trial of one Prince Tom for defilement and kidnapping.

The teenager who was led in evidence by the state prosecutor, Mr Peter Owolabani, said that she was a 15-year-old senior secondary student when Tom came to her home on Dec. 10, 2019, with a member of her family’s church.

The witness said that the defendant requested for N25,000 as part of a fee to heal her father of stroke.

She said that her mother told her to follow Tom to a Point of Sale (POS) to withdraw the sum.

She said that they went to some POS to make withdrawals but were unsuccessful because the operators had an insufficient fund.

The teenager said that in their search for another POS, she and the defendant took a commercial motorcycle from her neighbourhood in Bariga to Ilupeju, both in Lagos State.

“When we got to Ilupeju, my mother called him on the phone and I heard him telling her: ‘She is my sister, I cannot do anything to her ma’.

“He approached a commercial tricycle park and informed the drivers that we were siblings who just came to Lagos from a village, and asked for a hotel around the area.

“I had exhausted my transport fare, I am always staying at home, my parents do not allow me to go out; so, upon hearing him asking for a hotel, I told him I wanted to go back home.

“He said that he was seeing something in the spiritual realm that if went go back home, my father would die,” she said.

The witness said that they went to a hotel (Osmak Hotel Mushin) and the defendant paid for a room but she refused to follow him into the hotel room.

According to her,  the defendant persuaded her to follow him so that they could pray for her father’s healing.

“In the room, he was praying in God’s name and he brought out a black oil and said:   ‘In the next five minutes, your father is going to get up from his sickbed and walk’.

“After five minutes, he said it had been done and we should enjoy ourselves but I insisted that we should go home.”

He asked if I was stupid and told me to lie on the bed.

“I refused, and the next thing I felt was a gun pointed at my head.

“I started shouting and he held my neck, removed my trousers and forcefully had sex with me.

“I went to the bathroom afterwards and was crying; he said I should not tell my mother what happened and asked if I had eaten. I said I had not eaten since 4 pm, and the time was 8 pm,” she told the court.

The witness said they went downstairs and the hotel manager noticed bloodstains on her clothes and wanted to speak to her but the defendant refused and sent her back to the room.

She said the defendant came back to the hotel room, fell asleep and left the room key on the bed.

According to her, she could not sleep.

“I took the key, opened the door, went outside and locked him inside. I went to the receptionist, she gave me her phone and I called my mother but it was our pastor who answered.

“I explained everything that happened and gave him the address.

“I saw the hotel manager and explained what happened and he told me that he noticed the bloodstains and wanted to speak with me.

“The manager told the staff not to let the defendant out of the hotel room and they called the police who came to pick him up.

“This was about 2 am,” she testified.

While being cross-examined by defence counsel, Mr Kelechi Obi, the teenager said that though she lived in Lagos, she never went out.

She said that Tom met her family for the first time that day and her mother was not aware that she was taken to a hotel by the defendant.

She said her mother trusted him to run the errand with her daughter because he came with a church member.