HEARTBREAKING: Dad Whose Little Daughters Were Raped By Co-workers Recounts Why They Fell Prey

Ayodele Ekundayo, dad to the 4 and 3-year-old girls allegedly raped by five of his friends in the Fagba area of Lagos (read here) has shed light on how his co-workers took advantage of his heartbreaking struggles to make ends meet and provide a roof over his daughters’ heads to sexually abuse them.

Most times, he stays with his children in a room meant for drivers at the cement depot in Fagba where he works as an occasional ‘motor boy’. The little girls are however always on the move with the 36-year-old dad who cannot afford a personal apartment.

He told Punch, “Sometimes, they sleep in the truck with me when we take the loaded cement somewhere. Sometimes, we sleep at the park. Any time I get a new job, they move there with me so they can sleep anywhere available in the vicinity. Their mother abandoned them with me when my second daughter was just eight months old. That was two years ago.”

He added that he learnt furniture making but has not been able to make a living from it because he cannot afford to the capital needed to start the business.

He continued: “I sent my children to school with the little money I make working as a ‘motor boy’ or from the occasional work I get as a labourer. I realised if I needed to take care of my children, I needed a job I could do on a daily basis and get quick wages. That was how I became a ‘motor boy’.”

He also said before getting the job, they used to sleep in an uncompleted building because they were evicted from his rented one-room apartment after he could not pay the rent.

Ekundayo said they started disturbing them to leave the uncompleted building as the owner of the building wanted to complete it. He continued, “Five months ago, I got this job as a ‘motor boy’ and saved about N100, 000. I used N60, 000 to enrol my children in a school nearby.”

Sadly, on Friday, November 6, Ekundayo discovered his co-workers had been taking advantage of his disadvantaged position to sexually abuse his children. The alleged rapists whose ages range from 24 to 33 are reportedly security guards and drivers in the company.

The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, which apprehended them, identified them as John Mahansi, Taiye Ojo (aka Ejima), Deji Adenekan (aka Orobo) and Peter Irobo (aka Apako) and another suspect named Segun who is currently on the run.

Recounting how he made the depressing discovery, Ekundayo said,

“I came back from offloading cement that Friday evening and my three-year-old daughter came to me, pointing at her private part. She said, ‘Daddy, pepper, pepper.’ I asked her questions and she kept mentioning the name of Apako. She could not explain well but I had an idea what she was saying. So, I asked her elder sister what was wrong. I asked her if Apako did something to her younger sister, then he must have done worse to her, who is older. She then told me that she had been warned that if she told me anything, she would die. I told her it was a lie and that I would beat her if she did not tell me the truth. As soon as I gave her a lash of my belt, she started telling me everything. She said apart from that Apako, she had also been raped by John, Orobo, Ejimma, Segun.

Sometimes, when I go out to offload cement and I realise we might come back late, I take them along when they come back from school because I don’t like leaving them by themselves. When I was busy offloading cement, my children would stay in the vehicle. I didn’t know some of these drivers sexually abused them those times I was busy carrying cements. When I left them with our security guards, those ones too raped them. If I have a home, would anybody rape my children?”

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Ekundayo, said the men warned him to forget about the matter, and gripped by the fear of losing the room he often shared with his daughters, he could not do anything until a sympathiser who heard about the case in the neighbourhood, alerted officials of the NSCDC. The suspected rapists were then arrested.

His 4-year-old daughter said the first time she was raped, John said she should “lick the white water that was coming from his penis.” She said Ojo even showed her and her younger sister a pornographic video before he “put his thing” inside her private part.

Ekundayo said he felt so sad that the men not only raped her daughters but did other dirty things to them.

“My daughter told me that one of them even put his penis inside her ears. It was that bad. I need help because I cannot continue like this. I love my children and want to be able to take care of them,” he said.

The Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation has reportedly asked that the children be transferred to their custody and has now taken over the case.