Justice Rahman Oshodi of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court in Ikeja has heard how a housewife, Omolara Alashe forces a 19-year old girl (names withheld) to sleep with husband in order to bear children for them.
This was the evidence given by Investigating Police Officer, IPO Elizabeth Osikolu, a second prosecution witness on Monday.
While being led in evidence by State Prosecuting counsel, Babajide Boye, the Police woman who investigated the case informed the court that the incident happened in 2022 in their residence at Ketu where they relocated after the sale of their former house in Ojota.
The couple, standing trial for charges bordering on conspiracy, rape, sexual assault and stealing are Omolara (1st defendant) and Ramoni (2nd defendant) respectively.
Osikolu said that the mother of the survivor died while they were living at Ojota and the couple offered to accommodate her.
Narrating further, the IPO told Justice Oshodi that while living with them, the survivor said the couple “always abuse her physically whenever she made mistakes.”
She said there were times when the 1st defendant would also wake her up at midnight and strip her naked and the second defendant would have sexual intercourse with her without her consent.
The IPO stated, “The 1st defendant wakes her up in the middle of the night, strip her naked while her husband sleeps with the survivor.”
She said the survivor told her that they were in the sitting room one day when the 1st defendant suddenly started beating her, striped her naked and inserted her fingers in her vagina without her consent.
“After she was done she threw out her belongings and seized her ATM card and MTN line and the salary she was making at the time in order to deny her access to her money”, adding that the last incident was on March 24, 2023.
IPO said that her investigation further revealed that the couple had a baby who died in October 2022.
She said since then, the 1st defendant has not been able to conceive again.
She told the court, “So they decided that instead of the 2nd defendant getting married again, they decided to use the survivor to bear children for him.”
Under cross examination by Defence Counsel, Lekan Egberongbe, the investigator maintained that the survivor was not lying, adding that 1st defendant admitted it in her statement.
She told the court if the survivor consented to the sexual assault, she would not have reported the matter to DSVA nor submit herself to medical examination at Mirabel centre.
She insisted that the survivor could not resist the 2nd defendant because she was intimidated by 1st defendant.
However, Justice Oshodi adjourned the case till February 3, 2025
