According Sunday Sun,tears flowed freely as people beheld the pathetic sight of a
middle-aged nursing mother whose three-month old baby was thrown into the bush
while an eight-man gang of devilish souls raped her to a point of
unconsciousness right in the presence of her husband.
The woman (names with held) who had bruises all over her
body especially in the waist region could barely stand unaided when she was
sighted at the headquarters of the Kogi State Police Command.
Sunday Sun gathered that the suspects waylaid the couple on their
way to the village, and dispossessed the husband and wife of their cash and
valuables at gunpoint. Then they took them in the family car to a nearby bush
where they tied the husband and raped the wife who was at that time breast
feeding her three-month-old baby.
It was learnt that one of the armed robbers on getting to
the bush slapped the wife and forcibly took the baby away from her hands and
threw the baby aside. He pointed a gun to her head and ordered her to undress.
For more than two hours, the eight robbers, one after the
other, thereafter engaged the poor woman in a marathon sex while the husband
watched helplessly and the innocent baby cried profusely.
Parading the suspects before newsmen, the Acting
Commissioner of Police, Mr Abiodun Odude said the family was travelling from
Ogugu in Olamaboro Local Government Area, Kogi State to Iga-Ikeje when the
robbers accosted them.
Odude said the victim (names withheld) a native of Ogugu
reported at the Olamaboro Police Division stated that he was travelling in
his Toyota Corolla car with his wife and baby when suddenly some eight armed
robbers accosted them, dispossessing them of their car, N6600 cash and mobile
phone sets.
The alleged robbers then bundled them into the vehicle and
drove them inside the bush about two kilometres from the road, where the man
was tied to a tree prior to raping the wife. Giving further explanation of what
transpired, he said the wife who was oblivious of their plan as she was crying
and begging them not to kill her husband. This prompted one of the robbers to
give her a vicious slap, took the baby away and ordered her to undress, while
pointing a gun to her head.
He said the woman fainted after the ordeal.
Done with their evil business, they sons-of-the devil tied
up the woman’s legs and drove away in the car.
After about 40 minutes, the woman regained consciousness,
struggled to free herself and walked to a nearby village, where she informed a
group of vigilantes, who later rescued the husband.
On receiving the report, a police patrol team led by Mr.
Mbang Eteng, an Assistant Superintendent of Police tracked down and arrested
two of the robbers, whose names were given as Vincent Oguche from an
uncompleted building, and Femi Simon, who attempted to run away, but was
overpowered by policemen and both of them taken into custody.
The police said the two suspects in the course of
interrogation confessed to the crime and thereafter led the detectives to
their hideout, where the stolen car, assorted guns and handsets were recovered.
The names of two other members of the gang were given as Friday Oguche and Joe
Agbo. The police are still on the trail of the remaining four members who are
still at large.
Vincent Oguche while acknowledging that he and the others
actually committed the heinous crime, explained why they raped the woman
despite that she was nursing a baby, saying: “We were not in our right sense
because we were very high on drugs.”
Femi Simon who claimed to be a native of Iyah Gbede in Ijumu
Local Government Area of the state said he was an unemployed driver who was
conscripted into the deal. He said he could not control his libido when he saw
his comrades-in-crime ‘enjoying themselves’ so he had to join them to have a
taste of the woman.
The police rebuffed the request to speak with the woman,
firmly saying she should be left alone on account of the horrendous ordeal she
experienced.
Photographer John Moore visited Liberia, where Ebola has taken a
lot of lives, and his pictures put the visuals to Joanne Lui's words.
These are sad images of loss, grief, pain, despair and horror as an
innocent people grapple with a disease that is killing off their loved
ones.
