Bankole Wasiu, a 25-year-old man, accused of raping a 70-year-old woman has denied committing the act.
Wasiu, a caterpillar truck driver, was arrested at his workshop in Abule Ijoko in the Agbado area of Ogun State by vigilantes on 3 June for raping a woman said to be a friend of his landlady.
Speaking in an interview, the suspect, who admitted that he regularly patronises the said woman’s food and drinks, claimed that the vigilantes forced him to admit to raping the woman.
“The old woman they alleged that I raped used to visit my landlady where I stay. At times, she would ask me to buy her food and I would oblige her. At times, she would ask me to buy her alcohol and I usually would,” Wasiu told the Punch.
“I didn’t know anything about this until those vigilantes came to arrest me. They said I should confess that I raped the old woman, which I never did. They brought the woman to their office and asked me to identify her. I never claimed that I did not know her. I told the vigilantes that I knew the woman through my landlady.”
Wasiu also admitted that his house is not far from the lady’s own, but insisted that he has never entered her home.
He also stated that he was not at his apartment during the period of the said incident due to a prophecy his fiancée revealed to him, which he said was that he would be framed for an action he did not commit.
Despite his belongings being found at the house of the landlady’s friend, Wasiu insisted that he neither went to the woman’s house nor rape her at midnight has alleged.
He revealed that he took three bottles of beer on the night but could not really recall the incidents that occurred that night.
He said: “I do not know how they got my cap, clothes and torchlight, which they showed to me as things that would be used as exhibits. I told the officers of the vigilance group that I wore the clothes to work on the previous day and spread them outside to dry because I had been in the rain.
“I also identified the torchlight as mine but what happened was that I drank two bottles of beer the night before I was arrested. I don’t know why I did not open my door, which made me sit on a mattress that was kept in one corner outside my apartment. At that time, some kids came to meet me and we played together. In fact, we drank beer together. I don’t know what happened after that until I woke up around 10pm. I left the house immediately because my fiancée had warned me to stay away from the house. Part of the prophecy she revealed to me was that some people were planning to implicate me.
“I have never been inside the woman’s apartment since I started living in that area. I would only pass by her house whenever I went work or somewhere else. I have never raped anybody in my life since I was born.”
Wasiu alleged that upon his transfer to a police station, the vigilante officer that was said to have hit his back with a stick at the purported crime scene warned the woman not to change her statement whenever anybody asked her what happened.
The case has been transferred to the police division in the Ayinla area of Ogun State.
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