CHILD KIDNAPPER ARRAIGNED IN LAGOS

The Lagos State Police Command have arrested a trader identified as Ikechukwu Alu at the FESTAC Town of the state for the alleged abduction and rape of a seven-year-old girl, whose name was given simply as Victoria.
According to the Punch, Alu who resides at 23 market road, Festac town, accosted the victim while she was returning from an errand.
The child was said to have misplaced a voucher (recharge card) she bought while returning home and was chased out to go and look for the recharge card when the suspect abducted her on Adeola Street in Amuwo Odofin area of the street, where she lives and took her to a shop close by.

The suspect was said to have forced the girl to pass the night with him in the shop and allegedly defiled her.
It was gathered that as he left the shop around 5am the following day, some residents in the area saw him carrying the little girl on his back.
Knowing he has no child, the resident queried him on how he came about the girl and with no tangible explanation, they reportedly bathed him with ashes and handed him to the FESTAC division police.
The girl told the police that the suspect “put his thing (manhood) in my bum-bum” and was subsequently taken to the Mirabel Centre at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.

A test conducted on Victoria at the centre was said to have showed that she was raped.
Alu, explaining how he met the girl to the police, said, “She said her parent sent her to buy a recharge card, but it got missing and as a result she was chased out. I told her to follow me to a place and promised to take her home afterwards. She agreed and that was how I took her to the shop. We only slept together; I didn’t touch her.”
The suspect was arraigned at an Apapa Magistrate’s Court on one count of rape by a police prosecutor, Francisca Job.
The prosecutor explained to the court presided over by Magistrate A.O. Adegbite, that the crime violated Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
The charge read, “That you, Ikechukwu Alu, on May 24, 2016, at about 5am at 23 Road, FESTAC Town, Lagos, in the Apapa Magisterial District, did unlawfully defile a seven-year-old girl, thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 138 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011.”
Alu, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
He was granted bail by the magistrate in the sum of N100,000 with two sureties in like sum.
The Magistrate added that the sureties’ residential addresses and evidence of tax payments made to Lagos State must be verified by the prosecution.
The case was adjourned till August 11, 2016.