How policemen turned girl, 16, into sex-slave – ‘They forced me to sleep with others, including drug dealer’
Maimuna Tanko (not real names), who said she was a virgin before the incident, explained that one of the policemen who captured her also gave her to other men to have sex with against her wish, while he got paid. According to her, the policemen often used their official patrol vehicle to take her to […]
Maimuna Tanko (not real names), who said she was a virgin before the incident, explained that one of the policemen who captured her also gave her to other men to have sex with against her wish, while he got paid. According to her, the policemen often used their official patrol vehicle to take her to the patrons.
Narrating how she fell victim, the teenager recalled that she got on a motorcycle from Unguwa Uku with the intention of returning home to Yakasai after visiting her mother. Maimuna’s mother has been married to another man since the death of her father and she makes it a duty to pay such visits to her mother from the custody of her grandparents in Yakasai. As they neared her destination on the fateful day, she said they spotted a team of policemen on patrol a few metres ahead at Kofar Nasarawa round-about. It was still around 9pm. However, knowing that his motorcycle had no headlamp, the commercial motorcycle rider turned off his engine and pushed the bike until they got past the cops. “But as we got to the policemen, they asked him why he was moving with a girl,” she said. “He replied that the motorcycle developed a problem. They now asked him if it still has fuel and he answered yes. One of the policemen collected the key from him and started the bike and thereafter challenged him for riding without light.”
Without wasting time, the policemen asked the motorcyclist to ride on and leave her behind. They told him they were going to take me home in their patrol vehicle and also asked me to go and wait for them in the police car, she said. But Maimuna said she started pleading with the officers to be allowed to go home as the waiting started seeming endless. At about 2am, said Maimuna, the policemen finished their duty and instead of taking her home as promised, they drove with her into their barracks in Kwalli. “They did not take me to the counter,” adding that one of the officers called Yusuf went and got a key to a room inside the barracks.
She said: “He ordered me to go into the room. I entered and stood inside. He then locked me inside and went away. He later came with a plate of noodles and asked me to eat but I refused. He dropped the food in a corner and pocketed the room keys.” She continued: “He threatened that if I didn’t shut my mouth, he was going to shoot me with the gun.” With a “dirty slap,” “torn shirt” and a “gun to the face,” Maimuna said she subsequently succumbed and removed her clothes as ordered by Yusuf, adding that he then seized her and flung her on to a bed where he raped her until she bled seriously. In the morning, he called his colleague, Salisu, on the phone, who on entering the room, enquired why the girl was bleeding and was promptly told by Yusuf that two of them were to go out and get some drugs for her.
Before the two policemen locked her in the room, she recalled Yusuf giving her a warning: “if you scream for help or call for assistance, I know where to get you and kill you.” With the stern warning ringing in her ears, Maimuna said she remained docile and calm awaiting the return of her abductors. “They did not return until around 5pm in the evening,” she said. And instead of their return to bring her good tidings about freedom and returning home, it introduced a new twist. She said Yusuf went and invited his police neighbour’s girlfriend called Aisha “to bring me a pair of her clothes and water to wash my blood stained body.”
Not long afterward, Yusuf asked her to come and join their patrol vehile, thus rekindling her yearning for home, she stated. But instead of driving her home, they headed elsewhere with one Inspector Dantalle on the wheels, she said. Maimuna said Yusuf took her to his friend Shehu and asked him to take custody of her before he returned from duty in the morning. And she recollected the two friends moved aside and whispered to each other. According to Maimuna, before finally leaving for patrol, the policeman asked her to go with them into Shehu’s house. “Once we were inside Shehu’s room, Yusuf said to me, ‘here is my friend. He will be your bedmate tonight. Whatever he does to you, take it, for he has my permission. If you run away, I know where to get you.’”
Immediately Yusuf left with the other policemen, Shehu started romancing her but she resisted, Maimuna said. At that moment, he came out open and explained to her that “he did not pay money for nothing,” and there and then, she said he forcefully grabbed her and raped her. In the morning, she remembered the patrol vehicle came with Yusuf and other policemen and picked her up as promised.
Maimuna stated that she was continuously raped by Yusuf, two other policemen Inspector Dantalle and Salisu Dansanda, as well as three civilians, Shehu, Misbahu Mohammed and Sunusi Pele.
Recalling how she was taken in the police patrol vehicle to sleep with Sunusi Pele, whom she said is an Indian hemp dealer, Maimuna said on her first night, the alleged illicit drug dealer locked her up in the room until around 1pm when he returned and met her asleep. “But I had to give up as he told me that no one can rescue me and also informed me how he has been paying money to Yusuf to get me.”
Maimuna told Weekly Trust that during her 28-day captivity, apart from Yusuf whom she said turned her into a sex-slave, each of the two policemen and the three civilians had serially raped her 4 to 5 times, and mostly without using condom. She said for Yusuf, the rape was on a daily basis, even though according to her, the policeman was married. Maimuna disclosed that when she managed to escape from her captors two weeks ago, her uncle went with her the next day to report at Kwalli police station. However, the girl told Weekly Trust that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of the station begged the relatives to forgive his men and let the matter die.
She however added that her grandfather who rejected the position of the DPO on account of the nature of the atrocity against her, instructed her brothers to take the matter up with the Hisbah, the state shari’ah law enforcement agency.
Speaking to Weekly Trust on the issue, the secretary of the Hisbah board, Barrister Sunusi Salisu Aliyu, disclosed that when Yusuf was invited by his men for questioning, he admitted abducting the girl, adding that he denied raping her. The secretary however, noted that the policeman failed to provide an answer as to why the policemen chose to hide a person they picked during patrol in a private room instead of registering her at the counter.
However, while reacting to the story the Kano Police command issued a statement through its Public Relations Officer, ASP Musa Magaji Majia, stating that the command was not formally informed of the incident, saying an investigation has nonetheless, been ordered by the state police commissioner, Muhammad Tambari Yabo. The statement added that the policemen in question and the DPO have been invited to the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for interrogation, stressing however, that attempts were being made to establish contact with the victim and her parents.
Similarly, the command said it is making attempt to arrest the three civilian suspects who allegedly took part in the serial rape of the girl, while maintaining that, “if the allegation is found to be false, the Hisbah Board will be required to buttress their information so that the general public will know the true situation of the matter.”
Speaking to our correspondent earlier in the week, Maimuna alleged that she was being pressurised by some police officers to abandon the case, revealing that “if I continue to pursue it, I will be the one to suffer stigmatization at the end of the day.” The victim’s brother however expressed fears that other members of the family may be forced to submit and abandon the case. “You see, this girl is an orphan, who lost her father and she is from a poor background. We find it difficult to even pay for our transportation to police headquarters for the investigation, only that some of my friends have been assisting us with their vehicles. I have learnt that one of her grandmothers has been approached. So, we are afraid she could be influenced to force the girl to back down on her quest for justice,” he said.
The Kano office of the Legal Aid Council has through its coordinator, Barrister Nurudeen Ishola, said it is going to wade into the matter by holding brief for the victim and taking her plight up with the Kano State AttorneyGeneral. Aware that what she was fighting for may not come so easy, Maimuna quipped: “If I don’t get justice here on earth, I am sure I will get it in the hereafter.”