Man Rapes Daughters, 15-Month-Old Granddaughter

It is perhaps the worst degree of incest for a man to serially sleep with his daughters and worse still, with a 15-month-old granddaughter. 

It all looked like a tale from a movie  when seven-year-old yesterday recounted how her father had repeatedly had carnal knowledge of her.

THISDAY gathered that the suspect, Mr. Sylvester Ehijere, 49, had continually had carnal knowledge of his two daughters, including 23-year-old Favour, who he had been raping since she was 17, as well as the granddaughter.

The traumatised girl said her father slept with her for the first time last year, and had continued to do so, even when the act regularly became a source of discord and friction in the family.

"He covered my mouth with his big hand so that I wouldn't shout and then put his manhood inside me. It was painful. I was crying and begging him to stop but he refused.

"When he finished, he told me that he would pluck out my eyes and those of my mother and brothers and sisters if I tell anyone what he did to me. He also promised to buy me cars, biscuits, sweets, clothes and shoes but he did not buy it," the seven-year-old girl told THISDAY.

She continued, "He always targets when my mother goes out and then he will first put his finger into my private part before he will use his organ. Whenever my mother tried to ask him what he did, he beat her up. Now he has done the same thing to my small niece.

"The day he slept with her, he pursued my brother, Kingsley, and I outside and locked the door. I knew what he was doing to her but I couldn't tell anyone because my mother was not around. When he came out, he was sweating all over."

Confirming the incident, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Ngozi  Braide, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said the man would  soon be charged to court on charges of defilement, which is punishable under the law with life imprisonment.

She said: "The suspect is in the habit of sleeping with his daughters and now his granddaughter has joined the equation. We have the doctor's report,  which shows that the girls have been defiled and are no longer virgins.

"Their hymens were brutally torn and the doctor who established that they were defiled advised for them to be taken for Human Immune Virus (HIV) tests.  The wife who was fed up with his act reported the case to the Ejigbo Divisional Police Officer, Oliver Inoma-Abbey, a Chief Superintendent of Police."

For the suspect's wife, Mrs. Margaret Ehijere, the last straw that broke the camel's back was when the suspect raped her granddaughter.

She told THISDAY that she had been married to the suspect for over 23 years.

She said, "I am a professional caterer and in 2006 I went to Abuja for a catering job. At about 1am, my first daughter hysterically called me on the phone. She said her father had raped her that night. I lost that job because I had to go back to Lagos in the morning to be with my daughter.

"When I confronted him, he beat me up and I had no choice but to report him to his mother who also accused me of framing up her son.  I left him when I was fed up of him sleeping with our daughters and me. And he cannot accuse me of ignoring his bedtime requests, as I was always available for him."

Margaret later moved out of the matrimonial home with her six children. But in 2011, her husband’s family went to appeal to her to forgive him and take him back. She did, “after he swore to keep off my daughters.”
"I really thought he had changed; but in August last year, I caught him in a compromising situation with our last daughter. I called her out and she narrated how her father had been abusing her. Again, I confronted him and he beat me up.”

Ever since then, Margaret had started keeping her daughters away from her husband.

On how she found out that he had defiled their granddaughter, she said: "Because my daughter works, we decided to put her daughter at a day care in Ejigbo. I have always been the only one that brings her back at 6pm everyday from the day care.”

He later violated the baby after sending the elder children on an errand. “And my granddaughter was screaming till I came back in the evening," she added

Although the suspect had earlier denied the allegations, he couldn't repeat his denials before his wife.

Thisday