Court jails vigilante leader for raping epileptic teenager at gunpoint in Edo

FOR raping a 14-year-old girl, Miss Mamuna Haruna Osheku, at the small town of Ososo, an Edo State Magistrate Court sitting in Igarra, Akoko Edo LGA last Friday sentenced a vigilante leader, Mr Vincent Akande, to 14 years imprisonment.

The incident happened on May 12, 2019, when the teenager who is believed to be suffering from epilepsy, a central nervous system (neurological) disorder was by the riverside at Igbetua area of Ososo where she had gone to sieve sharp sands for sale.

The young girl told the court that Akande who was armed with a dane gun accosted her while she was packing sand from the river and threatened to shoot her before she surrendered to him.

According to her, the rapist threatened to kill her just like the three-year-old girl who was raped and strangled to death by the same riverside a few weeks earlier.

Mamuna further testified that the incident was the third time the convict would forcefully have carnal knowledge of her and threaten to kill her if she reports to her parents.

She said when she could no longer bear the agony of the forceful rape she decided to report the matter to her step-mother and her father who took the matter to the community head.

Mamuna’s father, Haruna Osheku, said the community agreed that Akande should pay a fine of a female goat and five thousand Naira for his offence but he refused before BraveHeart Initiative for Youth & Women (BHI) took up the matter and he was then charged to court.

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The prosecuting officer, Sergeant Samuel Obeze, said Akande was charged to court for having carnal knowledge of Mamuna without her consent and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 257 and punishable under section 258 of the criminal code Cap 48 Vol. II Laws of the defunct Bendel State of Nigeria 1976, as applicable in Edo State.

Although, Akande pleaded not guilty to the charge, Magistrate Chief Nosa Musoe found him guilty of the charge and sentenced him to fourteen years imprisonment without an option of fine.

Chief Magistrate Musoe described Akande as a cunning man who is deeply deceitful, adding that having been in the district for the past three years, he was alarmed at the rising cases of rape of young girls.

Mosoe ruled: “I hereby sentence the defendant to 14 years imprisonment without an option of fine. I must confess that this is one of the most difficult cases I have to handle in my career as a judge, very difficult and very painful. If you have daughters at home please tell your daughters to keep themselves.

“So let this go out to everywhere that this man has been sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment and let those who still engage in raping of innocent girls know that if they get caught there will be no mercy and you are lucky enough that the case is in my court and the law empowers me to give you fourteen years if it was in High court, for life you will be in prison,” said Nosa.

The founder and executive director of BraveHeart Initiative for Youth & Women (BHI), Ms Priscilla Usiobaifo, hailed the verdict as it “offers a glint of hope for justice to sexual assault survivors in a country where security agencies, health workers, traditional stakeholders and many first responders show low interest and willingness to sanction sexual offenders.”

She said when BHI initiated an intervention in the case, the team noticed apathy in some community members as many of them felt Persons With Disabilities (PWD) didn’t deserve certain rights especially with regards to sexual rights.

“Generally, the society’s attitude to the sexual and reproductive right issues of PWD is biased, uninformed and based on ignorance of the rights of this vulnerable group. Many of the community members do not see the reason why a PWD should report sexual assault let alone seek redress,” she said.