A 67-year-old man, who the police arrested for allegedly defiling a 12-year-old girl four times, has denied the claim about the number, insisting he had carnal knowledge of the girl only once.
The sexagenarian, James Olajoyetan, was alleged to have been defiling the teenager since she came to celebrate this year’s Ed-el-Kabir with her visually impaired grandfather in Ejigbo, Lagos.
The police alleged that Olajoyetan, who is a commercial tricyclist, slept on one occasion, with the girl in her grandfather’s one-room apartment, gagging her to prevent her from shouting so she would not alert her blind grandfather.
The police at the Ejigbo Division arrested the suspect, a widower, last Saturday when he allegedly invited the girl, pretending he wanted to send her on an errand, only to defile her.
The police quoted the girl to have said, “When I went there, I stood in front of his door. He told me to come inside to collect the money.
When I did, he shut the door, pulled off my pants, laid me on the bed, pulled off his trousers, brought out his manhood and lay on me. While he was doing it, I wanted to shout but he hit me severally and covered my mouth.”
The police at the Ejigbo police station told our correspondent that the girl’s cry drew the attention of a neighbour, who peeped through Olajoyetan’s window and forced the door open to catch him in the act.
The neighbour was said to have raised an alarm that alerted residents, who rushed to the apartment and handed the suspect to the police at the Ejigbo division.
A source at the station told our correspondent that the suspect claimed to be under a spell.
Olajoyetan was quoted to have confessed, “I had a disagreement with a pastor of the Christ Apostlic Church, Kajola. He accused me of being instrumental to his leaving the church. Six months ago, he boasted that he would place a spiritual load on my head and ensure I was publicly disgraced.
“Since then, I don’t know what came over me. They claimed I raped the girl four times, but it was only once. My wife died in 2005. I have six children; the first is 35 years old, while the last is 17 years old. I am still shocked that I could lay with a child that is much younger than my last child. When she came in, I gave her N100 and she hugged me. At that point, I lost my sense of judgment.”
When our correspondent called the outgoing Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Police Command, Bala Elkana, on phone for his comments on the matter, he did not pick the calls, neither did he respond to a message to his phone.
