The family of 11-year-old Favour Okechukwu who was raped to death in September, 2020 has decried what it described as delayed justice, noting that the perpetrators of the heinous crime are roaming the streets.
The late Favour, who was a JSS 3 student of Deo-Lively Stone International School, was allegedly gang-raped to death by some hoodlums in her community at Ejigbo, a suburb of Lagos.
Her mother, Mrs. Ruth Okechukwu, alleged that the outcome of the autopsy and forensic test that was conducted was not made known to the family; adding that the people who were arrested in connection to the incident have been released.
“We don’t even understand what is happening,” she lamented.
She appealed to the police and Lagos government to hasten the process of justice for her late daughter.
When contacted, the lawyer in charge of the case, Barr Alex Ishogba, said the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) advised that all the people arrested were innocent and that they should be released from prison.
“We tried to find out what happened because the suspects made confessional statements, so how come they became innocent? So, the DPP gave us the copy of the report and we found out that the police did not send the autopsy report, the semen report and even the fingerprint report of the suspects.
“All these facts were not released by the police to the DPP. Even the confessional statements were changed and that was why DPP advised that based on what was in the file, the arrested persons are innocent, and they should be released,” he said.
He, however, noted that the family has decided to sue the Lagos State governor, the commissioner of police, the state attorney general and the hospital that conducted the autopsy, to demand justice.
“Based on that, we have sued the Commissioner of Police and the Governor of Lagos State, the Attorney General, and the hospital that conducted the autopsy. We went to the high court for enforcement of fundamental human rights, so we have sued them for N100 million for damages done,” he said.
He stated that the matter is coming up on November 22 at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi as all those involved had been served.
It would be recalled that Daily Trust reported that some arrests were made after the death of Favour as the police promised to get to the root of the matter.
Just like the late Favour, many other under-aged girls have been sexually abused and sent to their early graves by hoodlums in the society.
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