“I lured her with N10 sweet”’, rape suspect says

A 30-year-old rape suspect, Mohammed Abubakar on Tuesday admitted to luring a nine-year-old primary four pupil with a N10 lollipop sweet.

Abubakar, a commercial motorcyclist and resident of Tudun Fulani in Bosso Local Government Area of Niger, disclosed this while being interrogated by the Niger State Child Right Protection Agency.

Abubakar said: “I saw her outside her school where I had parked my motorcycle to buy sweet and she told me to give her sweet.

“I gave her a sweet and then lured her to an uncompleted building and had sex with her.

“I am a married man and we have a 3-month-old baby; I have not been sleeping with my wife because she just gave birth recently and that tempted me into doing the act with the girl.

“I only had sex with the girl once; I am sorry,” he said.

Narrating her ordeal, the victim said: “He usually lures me to an uncompleted building close to the school during break time.

“He will touch my buttocks and put his finger inside my private part.

“He also gives me sweet and promised to give me N6,000 if I did not tell anyone about the act,” the victim said.

Also, the victim’s teacher, Hajiya Saratu Salihu, who reported the matter to the agency, explained that she started suspecting the victim following her frequent absence from class.

According to her, the victim always disappears from the school during the break periods and will not return to school.

“When I started suspecting that the girl was up to something, I kept monitoring her movement until I caught her outside the school premises with the suspect on Nov. 20.

“When she entered the school, I and another teacher took her to the bathroom and checked her private part; we realised the girl had been deflowered.

“We questioned her and even had to beat her before she told us that an “okada’’ rider had been molesting her secretly.

“We then started monitoring the suspect until he was caught in the act while trying to lure the victim,” the teacher narrated.

Reacting to the incident, Mrs Mairam Kolo, the Director General of the agency, said that most of the abuses meted out to children were committed during schools’ break times.

According to her, the agency will meet with the state’s Ministry of Education to emphases the need for students not to leave schools’ premises alone during break and closing periods.

“We have already embarked on sensitisation campaign to let parents know the dangers involved in allowing children go out alone without monitoring,’’ she said.

Kolo said that the suspect would be transferred to the State Criminal Department for further investigations while the victim receives medical treatments.