After being deflowered at age 12 on the kitchen floor by her father, in the Owo area of Ondo State, 19-year-old lady, Fatima Usman, has cried out for help.
Fatima accused her 52-year-old father, Usman Momoh, of having sexual intercourse with her since she was 12 years old.
According to Vanguard, she noted that her father had been sleeping with her repeatedly while her mother always looked the other way whenever she (the daughter) reported to her.
She said, “He would always threaten to kill me while holding a knife if I ever tried to expose him. He normally wakes me up in the middle of the night in our room and takes me to the kitchen to have sex with me. He usually holds a knife during the process.”
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 out of 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.
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.
Mrs Akeredolu’s intervention reportedly led to the re-arrest of the suspect who is gardener in a tertiary institution in the state.
The 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.
Fatima, who just finished her senior secondary education, explained that her father had made it a tradition to sleep with her before paying her school fees or providing for her needs.
She further alleged that he attempted to do the same with her younger sister who is 17 years 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 under the guise of observing ablution but made a move to sleep with her but she refused and reported to her mother, who scolded him not to try such again.
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.
Meanwhile, the 39-year-old mother of the girl claimed ignorance of the allegation when she met with the delegation.
But the suspect and father of Fatima, Momoh, admitted sleeping with her 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.