The Police Command in Adamawa State has arrested 23 people for alleged rape and homosexual offences.
The Command which paraded the suspects on Wednesday, said that of 19 people being held for rape-related cases, 14 were identified to have raped people in different parts of the state while five were part of a nine-member syndicate fingered in the rape of a 33-year-old woman.
The state Police Commissioner, Olubenga Adeyanju, told newsmen at the Police headquarters in Yola where the suspects were paraded Wednesday that four of the nine-member syndicate were yet to be arrested.
Of the five already in police net and as paraded Wednesday, one is 30-year-old Zainab Jafaru, who is charged with conspiring with the male members of the syndicate to rape her friend.
Zainab had allegedly lured her friend last month into the den of the syndicate in the state capital, Yola, where the male members took turns to rape the friend.
The police commissioner recalled how it happened, saying, “On the 12/06/2020, at 10.00hrs, the fifth suspect, Zainab Jafaru, deceived the 33-year-old victim who happened to be her friend to accompany her to Geiro, a certain place situated in a remote side of Jambutu, Yola North LGA, to see her boyfriend.
“Unknown to the victim, it was an organised crime planned against her. On arrival, the gang leader named Uda SNU invited his syndicate numbering nine, who immediately arrived and applied force on the victim and had sexual intercourse with her one after another.
“Investigation led to the arrest of five out of the nine while efforts are on to locate the fleeing suspects.”
Among the 14 suspects charged with other instances of rape was 45-year-old Sani Muhammed, the oldest among them who told newsmen that he is a family man with children, including two girls in their teens.
He said he found himself with the police after he defiled a seven-year-old girl.
Speaking earlier on the four suspects being held for homosexuality, the police commissioner disclosed that the suspects were apprehended last month, June 14, for engaging themselves as homosexuals and “constituting nuisances to Jabbi-lamba village” in Girei LGA of Adamawa State.
