‘I watched with horror as robbers raped my wife’

Saturday, April 13, 2012, could pass for a very bad day for some South East-bound commuters. That day, dare devil armed robbers, attacked them, near Okada town, in Edo State. Nwakama (other names withheld), a Lagos-based businessman, was one of the victims of the robbery attack. Narrating to Saturday Sun his bad experience, he revealed that he and his wife had boarded at Berger, at the boundary between Lagos and Ogun states, on their way to attend the burial of his wife’s uncle in Delta State. He said he intended to travel in the night but his wife suggested they should rather take a day bus for security reason. Nwakama revealed that when they got to Ore, in Ondo State, the driver stopped for the passengers to eat and buy some things. According to him, on approaching Okada town, the bus had a flat tyre. He said: “The driver stopped to change the tyre. We all alighted from the bus. One nursing mother in the bus refused to come down. While the driver was still arguing with the nursing mother, about 15 armed men swooped on us and ordered everybody, at gunpoint to follow them into the bush. We complied. “The men ordered that everybody should switch off his or her phones, warning that anybody whose phone rang would be killed.” Nwakama said that the robbers stripped all of them and collected money, handsets, wristwatches and other personal effects. He revealed that what could have led to his untimely death started when one of the hoodlums started caressing his wife. He said: “The man was touching my wife’s breast and my wife was crying and all of a sudden the man started putting his hands in my wife’s pant, while others were doing same to the other three girls and a woman with us. “As I would not stand the humiliation any longer, I warned the armed man to know that the lady is my wife and that it would not be good doing the thing in my presence. My effrontery angered the idiot, who corked his gun and threatened to shoot me. One of them armed with machete, got more infuriated and hit me with a sharp object on my head and I fell. “At the point of death, I watched the idiots raping my wife in turn. I passed out as I could not stand it any longer.” His wife (name withheld), who is still in shock said: “I don’t have anything to say, rather than that the God I serve will fish out those who humiliated me and give them the punishment they deserve.” She revealed that in their community, in Delta State, it is an abomination for a married woman to sleep with a man that is not her husband. “But when we arrived home and our elders deliberated on the issue and finally said that since it was not intentional, I had been forgiven. Yet, we still spent huge amount of money to perform some cleansing rituals.”