Police have arraigned a 38-year-old Cyprian Edundu, a cloth dealer before an Apapa Magistrate’s Court for allegedly raping a nine -year-old girl.
It was gathered that Edundu, who is purportedly having an affair with the victim’s mother, resides in the Ojo area of Lagos.
Edundu who hails from Imo State was said to have lured the nine-year-old girl into his room in October 2014 where he allegedly had canal knowledge of her and warned the victim not to tell anybody about the act.
The victim however informed her mother about the accused antics when he lured her into his room for the second time and tried to rape her.
The accused was arrested after the victim’s mother, identified as Amaka, reported the case at the Ojo Police Station.
Edundu however denied the claim, saying he only sent the girl on an errand. He admitted however that he was dating Amaka, adding that the woman sends the girl to him whenever she wants money.
He said, “I merely sent her, the victim, on an errand. I didn’t rape her. Amaka, her husband and I are very close. One day she, Amaka, came to my room half-naked, asking for money. She seduced me one morning when she needed N5,000. That was the first time we had sex. She sent her daughter to me whenever she needed something.”
Amaka, denied having extramarital affair with the suspect, but admitted borrowing money from him.
Edundu was arraigned on one count charge of rape.
The charge reads, “That you, Cyprian Edundun, sometime in October 2014, at about 10am on Semach Street, Agric, Ojo, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did defile a nine-year-old girl without her consent and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria, 2011.”
The police prosecutor, Insp Olusoji Ojaokomo, while testifying in court said a medical test carried out on the minor at a general hospital in Lagos shows that her “hymen had been ruptured.”
Edundu however pleaded not guilty to the charge.
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