A 19-year-old shoemaker identified as Sunday Cosmas, a.k.a Apon, has been arrested for allegedly defiling three minors aged five, eight and ten years in Ikotun area of Lagos State.
Crime Guard gathered that the suspect who usually comes to visit his girlfriend, Ibukun, at No 5b, Balogun Street, Ijegun in Ikotun raped the three minors in the same location but at different occasions. It was learned that he started sleeping with the eldest victim (name withheld because she is a minor), last year while she was still nine years old.
Still unsatisfied with his actions, Cosmas went ahead to defile two other victims. The 8-year-old was raped on May 6; the 10-year-old was raped on May 10, while the 5-year-old was raped on May 12, 2016.
It was gathered that two of the victims are siblings while the other is from another parent. It was also revealed that the victims were always present when the suspect made love to his girlfriend in her apartment.
Trouble, however, started after one of the victims innocently told her mother that she stopped going to Aunty Ibukun’s house when Apons was around because he usually sleeps with her.
Soon after her outburst, a neighbour whose daughters had complained of a similar occurrence confirmed the allegations. Shocked by the revelations, the aggrieved parents immediately raised an alarm and the suspect was arrested by policemen from Ikotun division and later transferred to State Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Department, SCIID, Yaba, for further investigation.
His victims
Victim’s account:
The first victim, Debora (surname withheld), narrated her plight to Crime Guard.
“ I am five years old. Apoh comes to our house always. He would come to the house and ask us to come to the room that he wanted to send us on an errand. Then he would tell us to go inside the room and remove our pants.
As always, we will not agree but he would do it with force by making us lie on our backs after which he would remove his boxers and have sex with us. Whenever we cry, he would tell us to come and eat. He has had sex with me twice. He calls us one after the other.”
The second victim, Aliyat stated;
“I am eight years old. I am in primary one. He would always take us around our school with his friends. Whenever we close, he would come home with us. He does not use the same road with us. He would use the mosque road. At home, he would sit three of us down, calling us one by one to send us message.
While inside the house, he would tell us to back him, sometimes he tells us to hold the wall or chair. Sometimes, he would give us N20. After having sex with us, he told me that I should not tell my mother, if I did, he would kill me. He has slept with me twice.”
The third victim, Ifeoluwa, also narrated her ugly experience with the suspect:
“I am 10 years old. He started having sex with me since last year. It was my younger sister that told my mother. When it started, it was painful but at a time, the pain disappeared. I want the government to do whatever they deem fit.”
Debora’s mum’s account:
“We were sleeping outside the first day Debora mentioned it. I slapped her and cautioned her not to say it again. She said that Apon came to the house and she, her sister and Aliyat ran away. I then asked them why they did so.
It was then that she said that Apons always have sex with them. The elder sister also wanted to contribute but the father slapped her also. The next day, as I was returning to the house, my neighbour, Aliyat’s mother approached me saying that what Debora told me yesterday might be true, and must be taken seriously.
Initially, I laughed ridiculously but she further explained that after Debora’s narration, she asked her daughter if it was true. Her daughter who was not outside the previous day narrated same story to her. After this, I also informed my husband when he came back.
We then went in search of Apons and we met him at the school where he hangs out with his friends. When we got there, we asked him what has been happening among them, he denied ever doing anything to them but the children countered him. It was there that I slapped him and started raising alarm.
People living in the area pleaded with us to leave him and we did, but warned him never to cross our compound. The next day, he came to our compound and started pointing at our room. It was one of my neighbour’s children that ran to call me that he was pointing at our house because I was inside the house. When I ran outside to see if it was true, I didn’t see him, but the other children confirmed that he pointed to the house. I then reported what happened to my husband.
We had to report the case to the police station.”
The mother of the third victim, Mrs Afolasade, who lamented the plight of the children, stated that the victims are suffering from peer alienation. According to her,
some time ago, I caught a child using what happened to mock my daughter. The government should uphold the law.
Suspect’s account: However, the suspect, Sunday Cosmas, denied the allegation that he raped any of the minors.
According to him,
I usually go to their compound to visit my girlfriend. I only made love to my girlfriend, Ibukun, while the kids were inside the room watching film.”
Meanwhile, the various tests carried out on the three victims at the Mirabel Centre, Ikeja, revealed that they were sexually abused.
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