A middle-aged man has been arrested by the Edo State Police Command for allegedly impregnating his 13-year-old daughter in the Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of the state.
The victim disclosed that her father had slept with her right from when she was in primary 6 at the age of 7 and had continued until she became 13 years old.
“My father slept with me five times. He started when I was a little girl. He would order me to come on the bed and begin to touch my waist. When I told him to leave me alone, he said that he would severe my head with a machete.
“When I reported him to some people in the community, they beat him up”, the teenager said.
However, the suspect, Friday Moses who is a commercial motorcycle rider from Cross River State, denied any connection to his daughter’s condition.
“I was told that I impregnated my daughter. Someone else owns that pregnancy; she told them (community members) that I was responsible for it.
“I never slept with her. A woman told me that she was pregnant. The following day, the community summoned me and the police arrested me. When I told the police that I was not responsible for the pregnancy, they began to beat me up”, he said.
Moses who was paraded at the police command headquarters in Asaba claimed that efforts to get a wife, after the death of the victim’s mother in 2013, had not been successful.
“I used to have a girlfriend, but her people quarrelled with me and told me to leave her alone because she was someone else’s wife”, he said.
Meanwhile, the state Commissioner of Police, Johnson Kokumo said 14 suspects were arrested for cultism in the Ekosodin area of Benin.
He said, “I got information that cult members at a time were on the rampage in a place and the police swooped on them. A total of 14 of them were arrested; arms and ammunition were recovered and investigation is ongoing with a view to arresting other members of the cult that have taken flight. As soon as we conclude our investigation, we will prosecute them in a court of law”.
Kokumo noted that some of the suspects made incursion into Edo from neighbouring states. “I want to sound a note of warning that criminals in Edo State by now should know that there is no place for them to continue in the state. It is high time they left.