The First Lady of Ondo State, Betty Akeredolu, has come to the rescue of one Fatima Yusuf, who had put out a video narrating how her father had s-exual intercourse with her for seven years since she was 13.
It was gathered that after Mrs Akeredolu watched the video, she swiftly sent a team from her office to interact with the girl, her relatives and the police, a development that led to the arrest of erring father.
The Street Journal had earlier reported how the victim narrated her ordeal in a two-minute, ten seconds video.
“Whenever I refused to have s-ex with my father he would send her out of the house in the midnight. My father has been sleeping with me for a very long, and whenever I refused he would send me out of the room.
“If I say I will voice out, he would be threatening to kill me. He would bring out a knife and show me that if I tell anybody he would kill me. My mother did not bother to check on me whether I slept in the room or not. Anytime my father sent me out, and I slept outside, my mother would have slept off, she did not know what was happening,” Fatima had said in the video.
The First Lady who emphasized that perpetrators of s-exual and gender-based violence would not be tolerated in any sane clime, added that if Fatima gets justice, it will send a strong message to such evildoers.
Fatima who further recounted her ordeal said their mother never gave them listening ears and that her father had also begun molesting her younger sister. She added that she never got pregnant because her father always monitored her menstrual cycle.
She said:
“I remember my father coming to wake me up in the dead of the night and led me to the kitchen which was downstairs. He threatened me with a cutlass and kept slapping me and said if I do not cooperate, he was going to kill me. He had a knife also in his hands. He finally deflowered me at 13.
“My mother never gave me the chance to speak to her. Once I tried to express it, she would shut me off. But I have asked her a number of times if truly the man I call my father is indeed my biological father. My younger sister even told my mother recently that daddy was touching her breast, but mother simply shunned us and asked us to leave.”
Fatima explained that she kept quiet for a long because her father threatened to kill her if she ever exposed him.
“He initially told me I would be free in 2018, then again in 2019 but when he came again in 2020; I told him if he doesn’t free me, I would free myself”, She said.
Reacting to the incident, Fatima’s aunt, Mrs. Diamond Mary, said Fatima who was missing for some days suddenly showed up at her house and exposed her father’s act. Mrs Mary said Fatima’s father confessed to the crime upon interrogation.
Similarly, the FIDA chairperson, Bar. Bola Joel, said the Agency in collaboration with the office of the First Lady, has moved Fatima to the Government House while the matter is being closely monitored.
Confirming the arrest of the suspect, the Ondo State Police spokesperson, ASP Tee Leo Ikoro, said the case is under investigation, adding that the culprit who was rearrested after jumping bail had been transferred to the state CID.
