Parents Offered N25,000 in Placation After 8-Year-Old Daughter’s Rape

The parents of an 8-year-old girl allegedly raped by their 48-year-old neighbour, Mr. Peter Christopher, were reportedly offered N25,000 to drop charges.

The girl, Blessing (pseudo name), told PUNCH that on Thursday, June 18, 2015, she was about to enter her parent’s apartment when, Christopher, a carpenter, who lives just two doors away from their apartment, dragged her into his room, locked the door and defiled her.

Blessing said, “His (Christopher’s) wife had gone for a wedding programme that day. He was alone in the house. I was playing outside before but as I came in and was about to open our door, he moved near me and dragged me by hand into their room. He locked the door and pulled down my panties. He then put his ‘thing’ inside me. That was the only time he did it.”

Explaining how she found out about her daughter’s defilement, Blessing’s mother said, “I did not know anything until the night when she told me that her private part was hurting her. I did not suspect anything and she did not tell me anything. I rubbed Vaseline on her to ease the pain but the following day when I wanted to bathe her, I realised that she was bleeding. I then suspected that somebody had been touching my daughter. As soon as I asked who had been touching her, she told me that it was our neighbour. He is even older than my husband!”

Christopher has a daughter of his own, who is in the same age group as Blessing.

He was arrested and detained at the Agbado Police Division, while the girl was taken for test and treatment.

While Christopher was in detention, he continued to deny that he ever touched the girl. But Blessing said he had no reason to lie while her parents said they believed their daughter.

However, after the pressure of numerous pleas from pastors and landlords in the area became too much, the girl’s parents were forced to write a letter to withdraw their case.

In order to douse the tension generated on the case, their landlady also signed an undertaken on Christopher’s behalf, and agreed to pay the sum of N25,000 in five installments to Blessing’s parents.

“I just don’t know what that money is for because I have refused to take it. Is it for my daughter’s treatment or compensation? If it is for treatment, what I spent on her treatment, tests and drugs is even more than that,” the girl’s 41-year-old father said.

Asked to recount his own side of the story, Christopher on Wednesday blatantly said, “If you cannot tell me the name of the person who made the allegations against me, I cannot say anything further.”