A man, Adeleke Ogundare, has been arraigned before an Akure High Court, Ondo State, for raping his 13-year-old landlady’s granddaughter.
Ogundare, who pleaded not guilty to the charge the police preferred against him, was dragged before Justice Samuel Bola.
Gloria Aigbuje, a teacher of the victim at St. Stephen’s Primary School, Ijomu, Akure, whom the prosecuting counsel, O. F. Olatunji, called to the witness box, testified that the 13-year-old pupil was in her class in Primary Four and that she observed that she was moody and withdrawn from other pupils in her class.
Aigbuje said there was a day the pupil was shivering and fidgety when she wanted to send her on an errand.
She added that when she enquired from the girl what was troubling her, she opened up that a tenant in her grandmother’s house had been raping her consistently. The witness added that the girl said the man even gave her contraceptive drugs so that she would not get pregnant.
The witness further testified that the victim said she could not tell her grandmother because the defendant threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape.
Aigbuje said she immediately informed the school’s Head Teacher, who reported the case to the police at the “A” Division.
She explained that the pupil was no longer coming to school.
Olatunji explained to the court that the victim had taken ill and had been hospitalized, which was why she had not come to the court totestify in the case.
The judge adjourned the case till February 12, 2020.
