A 30-year-old man, Lawali Bala, has been arrested for allegedly sodomizing 12 children at Rikina village in Dange-Shuni local government area of Sokoto State.
Lawali, who hailed from Anka Local Government Area of Zamfara State, has been carrying out the illicit acts for over two years before he was arrested.
According to Lawali, he was introduced into it by his fellow labourer in Niger State and since then, he could not stop doing it.
He disclosed that he came to Rikina in search of a greener pasture, even though, his grand parents were originally from the area.
Lawali told Daily Trust that he was sodomizing the children while they were sleeping because they used to spend their night together at the residence of one of his victims’ father.
“I don’t give them anything because I used to do it when they were sleeping but not at the same time.
“If I sodomized one today, I will wait until after a week before I do it to another,” he said.
Daily Trust learnt that he met his waterloo when one of the boys, who caught him in the act, reported him to his father.
“Then the people of the community handed me over to Hisbah and told me never to return to the area again,” he said.
One of the victims, a 13-year-old boy, said; “anytime I wake up in the morning, I used to feel the movement of something like thick water inside my anus with my trouser’s rope, either cut off or loosened.
“There was a time, I caught him, loosing my trouser’s rope but I was afraid to tell my parent, thinking they would not believe me,” he said.
The father of the boy said: “I am betrayed because this is the guy that I treated like a son.
“I sheltered him, fed him and even gave him cloths but look at how he paid me back.”
The zonal commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and other Related Matters (NAPTIP), Mitika Mafa Ali, said the suspect would be charged to court as soon as investigation was concluded.
