‘How my father impregnated me, aborted pregnancy’

A 20-year-old girl (name withheld) on Thursday told an Ikeja Special Offences Court how her father, Akin Isaac, allegedly impregnated her and aborted the pregnancy.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the survivor said, while being led in evidence by State Prosecutor, Y. A. Alebiosu, that prior to living with her father, she was staying with her grandmother.

The survivor said her father raped her at age 17 during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 at their residence in Alapere, Lagos.

She said her father had asked her to come and live with him in 2019 so she could go to secondary school and to enable him to take proper care of her.

The witness said her father, who had two wives, began touching her body suggestively.

“I was scared, so I begged him to leave me, but he went to buy a cane, put it on the table and later beat me with it in order to have sex with me.

“He threatened to kill me if I tell anyone. I was 17 years old at that time. I was in JSS 3 and I am a kind of person that used to sing but I changed suddenly.

“I begged him one morning that I do not want my life to spoil but he ignored my plea and had sex with me again. When he did it again, I did not go out,” she said.

The survivor further told the court that her father stopped her from attending her church.

“I used to go to C&S church. He stopped me from going to the church but pastor came to beg him to let me attend church.

“The second Sunday, I went to church, but he stopped me again and said I should be attending Redeemed church and I told him I do not want to go to there.

“My father seized my phone, broke the SIM so that I could no longer communicate with my 27-year-old half-brother whom I usually confided in.

“He also used Gotv iron to beat me and some neighbours even said I should come and live with them while others are afraid of him because he is an OPC man,” the survivor said.

She told the court that after she missed her period and found out she was pregnant, her father tried to abort the pregnancy by giving her drugs and injections but to no avail.

“I received 15 injections for abortion. He bought a medicine, the drug was not working. A nurse asked me who got me pregnant, but I could not tell her it was my father.

“He later took me to a place where there was no light and the pregnancy was terminated,” she said.

The witness further told the court that her father also tried to have sex with her again while she was sleeping in July, 2020, after the abortion, but she objected, leading to the intervention of the neighbours.

“That night, he came and started beating me and when neighbours intervened, he told them that I am his daughter and he can choose to do whatever he likes with me, even saying that if he wishes he could kill me because I am his daughter,” she said.

Another prosecution witness, Modupe Aladelusi, a social worker with the Ministry of Youth and Social Development, who handles cases related to violence, abuse and neglect of children, told the court that she received a call on June 17, 2020 on the agency’s hotline.

She said she received a call from a man who said the girl said she would commit suicide, that she did not have anywhere to go to.

The social worker said she went to a police station and a police woman accompanied her to the girl’s house.

She added that they later took the survivor to the police station where they took her statement, and while at the station, her father came and they arrested him.

“When we got to the office, she said her father has once impregnated her and took her somewhere to abort it,” the social work told the court.

Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo adjourned the case until April 13 for continuation of trial.

(NAN)