April 3, 2012 | 11:00 am

Headlines, VANGUARD News

By Evelyn Usman
LAGOS — Emotion ran high yesterday at the Ajao Estate  Lagos, abode of one of the female victims of last Saturday’s robbery attack on a Luxury bus belonging to Ekene Dilli Chukwu Nigeria Limited and reported rape, along Ijebu/Ode/Ore expressway, Ogun state, following the 16-year-old’s account of  how she escaped from being gang- raped.

The gunmen according to her, carried out the reported rape out of frustration, when they discovered that their victims were students and not businesswomen who were possibly traveling to purchase goods in Lagos.

This is just as vanguard gathered that some of the girls who were rushed to the hospital on arrival Sunday, had been discharged , as none of them sustained major injury.

However, the Ogun State Police Command has said that it had no report of rape in the statement made by driver of the attacked luxury bus, even as it disclosed that  adequate patrol along the expressway had been intensified.

The Junior Secondary School girl (names withheld) who still showed signs of shock attributed her escape from possible rape to sheer providence through her unexpected menstrual flow.

According to her, “ I was sleeping  and did not know how the bus was intercepted. But what woke me up was a bark and the next thing I noticed was that we were inside the forest.

At that point, I started reciting my rosary on protection. Our phones were first collected and then cash. I was just with N1200, out of which I was to buy recharge card to contact my parents on approaching Lagos. That, they collected.

“We were thereafter asked to lie down. It was at that point that they discovered we were students and one of them shouted in pidgin English “so na because of these small children we dey do all this wahala?

Then, they started approaching us saying we should pull off our clothes. But one of them challenged the person that said so, asking if he did not realise we were children and it resulted in a shouting match between them.

As the quarrel was on, another member of the gang came to me and said I should strip naked, pointing his long gun at me. I cried and begged him to have mercy on me but he didn’t listen . Out of fear of being shot, I pulled my underwear, only to discover I was already soaked in blood. I did not know what got into me then. But the next statement that came out from me was that one of them had already done it and I started crying. He pointed his touch light and said ‘ you want talk say you never do am before?’ and he went away. I do not know what would have happened to me had my menstrual flow not occurred”, she said, shivering from the thought of the unexpected.

Asked if they had their ways with her colleagues, she replied, “ I did not see anything because we were all scattered and the whole place was dark., so you would not see or know what was being done to the other person except yourself. What they did was to point their touch light on whoever they wanted to talk to and then almost immediately, switch it off.  The only thing I heard was screams and silent prayers. I can not tell how long we stayed in the bush because I was not with a wristwatch” she said.

No report on rape — Police

Meanwhile when vanguard visited  Mobolaji Johnson headquarters of the transport company, the staff politely explained that they could not speak with journalists. The Manager and spokesperson who could have done so, was said to have gone to Ogun State police command in respect of the incident.

But in its reaction, the Ogun State Police Command said the case of rape was never reported to the Police by the victims but only that of robbery attack.

Spokesman for  the command, Mr Olumuyiwa Adejobi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, stated emphatically that “the victims did not make such statement or complaint to the Police and our men at the scene did not see any sign of such. Though there was a robbery case involving the said luxury bus with Reg. No. XW 875 LSR at Ogbere area along Ijebu-Ode/Ore express-way,  with the prompt response of the Police patrol teams, the robbers were dislodged. The victims were rescued and taken to their destination by another vehicle provided by the Police.

“Also, the Command assisted in towing the faulty luxury bus in question to Lagos. Without mincing words, the Command did all that was necessary to protect the lives and property of the affected occupants of the vehicle,”Adejobi said.

He however, advised members of the public to avoid exposing their children and wards to both physical and moral dangers by avoiding night trips in its totality. Meanwhile, it was gathered that the robbery gang that attacked the luxury bus earlier carried out an operation at Ijebu-Ode, where they reportedly made away with some cars, same day. A motorist who claimed to be a victim, spoke to vanguard, following Monday’s publication, where he gave a vivid explanation of how the operation went.

According to the victim who spoke on condition of anonymity, “I was coming from Ijebu-Ode that Saturday, heading for Lagos, when all of a sudden I noticed  that vehicles in front had slowed down. It was about 8.15 pm. Then, I sighted some young men armed running and hitting vehicle windscreens. This was followed by gun shots. It was at that point that I realized they were robbers and I abandoned my vehicle and dashed into a near-by bush where I stayed for two hours. When I came out of the bush, including others who did same thing, we discovered that about five vehicles were driven away by the robbers.

The robbers were only putting on trousers without shirts and they numbered over thirty and were armed with AK 47 riffles. They made away with valuables inside the cars that were not snatched, including my phones. When I dialed my numbers, the person that replied spoke in Yoruba dialect”, he said.

A member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon Bisi Yusuf, representing Alimosho Constituency yesterday described the alleged raping of some of the female students by the robbers as ”barbaric, inhuman and cruel” even as he called for the much agitated creation of state police to effectively check some of the rising criminal acts in the society.