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An undergraduate of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, on Monday narrated to a Lagos State Special Offences Court how a suspected cultist, Tayo Bakare, allegedly raped her. Bakare is standing trial on eight counts bordering on conspiracy to commit robbery, robbery, deprivation of liberty and rape.
        The 19-year-old victim alleged that Bakare, on August 27, 2017, in the Ikotun area of Lagos, ordered her to remove her clothes, took her nude pictures with her phone and had forceful sexual intercourse with her. The 300-level student, while being led in evidence by the prosecutor K. A. Momoh-Ayokambi, stated that 24-year-old Bakare pretended as a family friend and lured her to a hotel, where he allegedly raped her, adding that the defendant threatened to kill her. She said, “I don’t know the defendant before the incident and prior to that day, I had planned hanging out with a family friend, one Miss Faith. But I had no idea that her phone had been stolen and that the person, who stole the phone, was the one chatting with me on WhatsApp. So, we fixed a date and place to meet. I came to Oshodi to meet her but it was the defendant I met holding Faith’s phone. And he said Faith asked him to come and pick me and I followed him and he took me to a hotel in Ikotun. He said my friend was inside the room and we went inside. When we got in, I sat on the bed and he then told me that everything was a setup, that my friend set me up for him. He thereafter locked the door and told me that he was a cultist and a member of the Badoo group in Lagos. He then ordered me to bring out all the items in my bag and placed them on the bed. I hurriedly obeyed. He asked me to give him money and I begged him not to harm me but to allow me call someone to transfer money to me to give him. I had my two ATM cards and N2,000 cash with me. He began threatening to kill me if I didn’t give him money. He, thereafter, ordered me to take off my clothes and face the wall. He also ordered me to unlock my phone, which I did, and he took nude pictures of me. And right after, he sexually abused me. When he finished, he told me to go to the toilet and wash myself so that I wouldn’t get pregnant. But while I was in the toilet, he locked me inside and ran away with my items. He took away my two phones an Infinix and a Samsung and the N2,000, but left my bag and clothes on the bed. I had to call for help and someone, who was passing by the room, unlocked the door. I had to explain what happened to a woman I met in the hotel and she assisted me with N500 to transport me to my house. She added that she narrated the incident to her parents, who reported at the Ikotun Police Station, and the police arrested her friend for allegedly setting her up. The victim, however, told the court that she later found out that her friend, Faith, was not an accomplice but rather a victim of Bakare. She added, “The defendant robbed Faith and used her phone to chat me up. The defendant was, however, caught when he used my own phone to send a message to our family group chat. When I saw it, I immediately asked my close friend, Joan Mary, to privately chat with him and play along. He was responding to Mary’s chats using my phone. He later asked Mary to come and meet him at the Sankoll Gardens, Idimu. That was when we alerted the police and the defendant came out around 10.30pm to meet my friend. But unknown to him, police officers, who pretended to be customers, were waiting for him in the hotel. When he met my friend, he tried to force her into crossing the road in order to take a bus to another location. But my friend began screaming and he took to his heels. He removed his shirt and ran off but was caught by the police and taken to the Ikotun Police Station, where he confessed. When he was searched, the officers found only one of my phones on him and he told them that he sold the other one immediately after he robbed me. The presiding judge, Justice Abiola Soladoye, adjourned the proceedings till November 19 for the continuation of trial.