Sunday Trust correspondent who visited the Kaduna State Police headquarters where the suspect was detained, reports that the man confessed to charge, saying he did so to take his pound of flesh from Sarah’s father whom he alleged asked the landlord of the house they were both living in as co-tenants at Kujama Road, Bayan Dutse Narayi, a suburb of Kaduna State, to give him a quit notice. “When I confronted him, he said I had not seen anything and that he was going to deal with me. So, I decided to deal with him first by hiding his daughter so that he could suffer,” he said.
Narrating how the incident happened, Victor said, “On the 31st of January, 2012, immediately I came back from work around 6pm, I discovered that the parents of Sarah were away, attending a funeral of a close relation, leaving her in the care of her senior siblings. So, I lured her senior brother with the sum of N20 to buy sugarcane outside the compound. When Sarah attempted following them, I called her back, asking her to wait. Immediately they left, I took her from Narayi to Ungwar Maijero into an uncompleted building,
“My intention when I took her was to hide the girl and punish the father due to the problem I had with him. But on reaching there, the devil entered me and I started beating her mercilessly until she became unconscious. After beating her, the devil entered me again and I used my finger to enter her private part. She screamed until she fainted. So, I left her there and came back home, thinking she was going to die. When I came back home, her father called the police for me to produce his daughter,” Victor narrated.
According to him, all the tenants in the compound of twenty three rooms live in unity until Sarah’s father accused him of calling someone to undertake an illegal electrical connection in the house, saying that was the cause of the problem. “I used my finger, not my manhood. It was the beating that gave her all the bruises and I also pressed her neck and wanted to kill her when the devil entered me. When I pressed her neck and used my finger to enter her vagina, she fainted so I left her there,” he reiterated.
On how Sarah’s parent knew about her whereabout, he said that when her parents came back that night, they started to ask for Sarah and one of the children told their mother that he bought sugarcane for them and took Sarah away to an unknown destination. Sarah’s mother approached him, he said, asking after her daughter. “I denied any knowledge of Sarah’s whereabout but she insisted that I must produce her daughter and she called the husband who called the police to arrest me. I still denied until the next day about 11am when I told our landlord that I was the one who took her away, and I took them, including the police, to where I took her to and they saw her there,” he explained.
Victor, who claims to be a native of Ezza in Ebonyi State, said he is married, but that his wife lives in the village. He also said he owns his business at the timber market by railway station and that he lives in Kaduna with his younger brother. He stated that he regretted his actions, saying, “I am feeling very bad over my action and I wished I never did it.”
On how the suspect was arrested, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of Kaduna State Police Command, DSP Aminu Lawan, said when the police were alerted of the missing girl around 9:30pm the same day the incident took place, the police swung into action while the lead was provided by Sarah’s brother who disclosed that “Uncle Victor went out with Sarah.” The PPRO noted that Victor was invited to the Barnawa police station for questioning, but he denied knowledge of the missing girl.
“Around 12:00 noon on the second day, the landlord of the house where the suspect and the missing girl parents are staying, came to the station and requested to have a private discussion with the suspect. He came out later to inform the police that the suspect had agreed to lead him to the uncompleted building where he had abandoned the girl. Immediately, policemen escorted them to the venue which is about five kilometers from Narayi. They found Sarah lying unconscious. She was immediately moved to the hospital for medical attention,” the PPRO narrated.
When our correspondent visited St. Gerald’s Hospital where Sarah is undergoing medical treatment, her mother, Mrs Agnes Achanya, lamented that she wanted justice against Victor for what he has done to her daughter. While she wept bitterly, she said that she wanted government to amputate Victor’s one arm and leg before he is released from custody so that it will serve as a deterrent to other men who do same.
She explained that Victor initially denied knowledge of her daughter’s whereabout until their landlord came to the police station. She said that Victor confided in the landlord on his action but that he doesn’t know if she was still alive. He told him to take it as a secret between himself and the landlord. “Victor is too wicked.”
“When we got to the uncompleted building where Victor took my daughter, we met her there lying helpless. She was immediately rushed to Saint Gerald hospital. Since my daughter was taken to this hospital, up till now, she cannot talk; she can only manage to open her eyes and take little food. This wickedness is too much. In fact, I cannot tell the gravity of this wickedness. We have been living together without knowing that Victor harboured this kind of evil plot in his mind.
“Whenever I think of what he has done, I kept imagining what he wanted to do with my daughter and this gives me a feeling that he wanted to use my daughter for rituals,” she sobbed.
