A 29-year-old commercial motorcycle operator, Sabitu Akilo, is currently cooling his heels at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Iyaganku, Ibadan, Oyo State, where he is being investigated on a allegation of rape, slammed on him by the family of a 14-year-old Junior Secondary School (JSS) 1 student, Abike (not real name).
The okada rider was alleged to have raped his victim, who was his passenger, while taking her to her destination, based on the commercial transaction between the duo.
The incident occurred on Wednesday, December 7, at about 9.00 a.m. at Onimo community on the outskirts of Ibadan, while the girl was on her way to visit her uncle and his family who live in the village. On the fateful day, the girl had left her parents’ house at Isale Afaa in Ibadan for her uncle’s place to spend some time with the family, since she had concluded her first-term examinations at school.
On getting to Bank Olodo, she had picked one of the motorcycles on queue, along with an elderly woman. The woman reportedly alighted along the way and the okada rider had proceeded towards Onimo community where Abike was going, or so she thought, until she noticed that the man had stopped over at a path she is unfamiliar with. When the teenager pointed this to the man, he had reportedly replied that the route she knew had gone bad, hence his reason for taking another one.
On getting to a solitary part of the bushy community, the okada rider allegedly sharply negotiated a bend, resulting in him crashing with the okada and his passenger. Pretending as if he wanted to raise the motorcycle, the rider had allegedly held his passenger down, gagged her and raped her. Probably feeling that he should compensate the girl for the forceful s*xual assault, he allegedly offered her N200, pleading with her not to inform her uncle of what transpired between them.
However, on getting to her uncle’s place, Abike reported what happened to her family members and thereafter, some of their neighbours immediately rushed back to the okada park, where Abike had earlier boarded the bike. Fortunately for them, they saw the okada rider, who was just about picking another passenger. Immediately Abike’s family members narrated what he did to their relation, the angry crowd, who had gathered, reportedly descended on Sabitu, ready to lynch him, but they were prevailed upon by the family members, some of whom had gone to Iyana Offa police station to report the incident. He was promptly arrested by the police, and after initial interrogation, his case was transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Iyaganku, for further investigations.
Speaking with NEWSMEN at the State CID, Sabitu, who claimed to be a father of four, said: “I am an okada rider and I live at Pagun on the outskirts of Ibadan. The incident for which I was arrested happened at Olodo area on Wednesday, December 7. My route is Bank Olodo to Odan. Around 9.00 a.m., I picked the girl and one old woman.
The woman was the first to drop and I was left with the girl because she was going to a new site called Onimo. When we got to where we usually drop people going to Onimo, I asked her to get down and demanded for my N80 which was the fare I charged her.
“She told me that she was still going farther, so I moved forward where there were no houses. As we got to a junction, she told me to make a turn. As I made a turn, the bike fell and that was where I raped her. It is only God that knows how it happened. She resisted my attempt and I gave her N200 after I finished having s*x with her. I continued the journey and eventually got the place she was going. I dropped her and turned back after she gave me the N80 transport fare. I went back to our terminus and was about taking a passenger when she came with her uncle and sister-in-law and I was arrested. I was severely beaten by the angry crowd who heard what she said and the police later took me away.”
Fourteen-year-old Abike, while narrating her experience in the hands of the okada rider, said she lived with her parents at Isale Afaa in Ibadan, but decided to go and visit her uncle on the fateful day. “I had once visited his family when they newly moved into the house and that day I wanted to go to him again, since we had concluded our exams in school. I took a bus to Olodo and it was there I picked a bike to Onimo where my uncle lived.
“The okada man carried one old woman and myself. The woman said she was going to Orita Odan. She got down and I was left with the okada rider. He started going towards a bushy and lonely route I did not know and I pointed out my observation. He replied that the route I took before was bad, hence his decision to take another route. That was how he stopped inside the bush and used a rope from his cloth to gag my neck and also used his palm to cover my mouth. He pulled the rope on my neck so tight that I almost died. It was God that saved me, as I could have suffocated to death. That was how he raped me.
“When he finished, he gave me N200 and warned me that I should not tell my uncle that he raped me; that I should just tell him that I fell from the okada that carried me. He did not drop me in front of our house, but some distance away from it. I gave him the N80 he charged me for the fare, but he returned it and I threw it away along with the N200 he gave me. When I got to where I was going, my uncle’s wife saw my countenance and asked what happened to me. I narrated how I fell from the bike and how the rider took me inside the bush. She then asked me if he had intercourse with me and I replied in the affirmative.
“That was how all members of the household went in search of him and we saw him where he was picking passengers. He was apprehended, and on hearing what he did, the crowd started beating him. He is lying that I had been having s*x before because he was the first person that would do anything like that with me. I bled after and my skirt was stained with blood which the police saw when I was taken to Iyana Offa police station,” she narrated.
When contacted on the story, the Police Public Relations Officer in Oyo State, ASP Femi Okanlawon, confirmed the story, warning mothers and young girls to be on the alert against people of shady characters who hide under the cover of being okada operators to perpetrated rape.
In an update on the story, NEWSMEN gathered that the suspect was charged to Magistrate Court 1 on Friday, December 16, on a one-count charge of defilement, and that the magistrate, Alhaja Fatimoh Badrudeen, ordered that he be remanded in prison custody until January 18, when the case would come up again in the court.
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