Alleged rape of AAUA student: Army confirms arrest of soldiers involved

The 32 Artillery Brigade of the Nigeria Army, Akure, Ondo State, said the soldiers involved in the alleged gang rape of a female student of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko (AAUA) have been arrested.

The Brigade Commander, Brig. Gen. Zakari Abubakar, who confirmed the arrest of the soldiers on Friday said the command had commenced an investigation into the matter.

He said, ” It is very true that they (the soldiers) have been arrested and brought to the command. We have commenced our investigation.”

The management of the AAUA also said the investigation had begun into the matter, though the affected female student has not reported the case to the institution officially.

The head of the Media and Protocol Unit of the AAUA, Mr Victor Akinpelumi, said the school had already taken some measures to investigate and bring the suspects to book

Akinpelumi said, ” The victim has not officially reported the matter to the school authorities, but in spite of that, it is a matter that concerns one of our students, we have taken some steps. The university has set up a committee to investigate the incident and the committee would submit its report in few days.

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” I believe during the course of the investigation by the committee, the lady would be invited for questioning while many other people believed to know one thing or the other about the incident, would be interrogated by the committee. So the report of the committee would reveal everything that happened.”

The victim, who is a 300 level student of the Department of Religious and African Studies of AAUA was allegedly gang-raped by some soldiers at a checkpoint in Ikare Akoko, the headquarters of the Akoko North-East Local Government Area of Ondo State, on Wednesday.

The student was allegedly forced to alight from a commercial bus and dragged into the relaxing room of the soldiers at the checkpoint, where she was allegedly raped by the soldiers.

The victim was said to be returning from the campus on the fateful day had failed to report the matter to the school authorities.