-Deborah Akinyosoye
An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court has heard how a housewife, Omolara Alashe forced a 19-year old girl (names withheld) to sleep with husband, Ramoni Lateef to bear children.
An Investigating Police Officer (IPO) who was PW2 gave the narration yesterday while being led in evidence by state prosecuting counsel, B.T. Boye, leading Bukola Okeowo before Justice Rahman Oshodi.
Omolara and Ramoni are 1st and 2nd defendants respectively in the matter and are facing charges bordering on conspiracy, rape, sexual assault and stealing.
The IPO, Policewoman Elizabeth Osikolu told 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.
Osikolu told the court that the mother of the survivor died while they were living at Ojota and the couple offered to accommodate.
The IPO told the court that while living with them, the survivor said the couple “always abuse her physically whenever she made mistakes.”
She said at other times, “the 1st defendant would also wake her up at midnight and stripe her naked and the second defendant would have sexual intercourse with her without her consent.
“The 1st defendant wakes her up in the middle of the night, strip her naked while her husband sleeps with her(survivor)”
She said 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 told the court that her investigation further revealed that the couple had a baby which died in October 2022.
She said since then, the 1st defendant has not been able to conceive again.
“So they decided that instead of the 2nd defendant getting married again, they decided to use the survivor to bare children for him.”
Under cross examination by defence counsel, Lekan Egberongbe, the IPO 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 to DSVA nor submit herself to medical examination at Mirabel centre.
She insisted that the survivor couldn’t resist the 2nd defendant because she was intimidated by 1st defendant.
Justice Oshodi adjourned the case to February 3, 2025.