POLICE in Ogun State, Sango division, has apprehended a private school teacher identified as Mathew Adebayo for reportedly raping a 15-year-old female student, sitting for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination.
The minor whose name is withheld reported the abuse to her school’s proprietress, after Adebayo had threatened she would fail the exams if she refused his advances, The Punch Newspaper reports.
It was gathered that Adebayo who was arrested following a report of the incident by the proprietress to the police had defiled the girl on different occasions inside a classroom at night.
Abimbola Oyeyemi, Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, confirmed Adebayo’s arrest in a statement released on Friday.
“A teacher in a private secondary school (name withheld), Mathew Adebayo, has been arrested by men of the Ogun State police Command for forcefully having unlawful carnal knowledge of a 15-year-old pupil of the school,” Oyeyemi said.
“The teacher was arrested following a report by the proprietress of the school who reported at Sango Police Station that she was informed by one of her SS3 students that the suspect has been raping her repeatedly since school resumption in preparation for the WAEC examination.
“She stated further that the said teacher intimidated the victim by telling her that she will not pass the WAEC exams if she didn’t allow him to have sex with her, consequence upon which he had been calling her out of the dormitory in the night and taking her to a classroom where he used to have carnal knowledge of her.”
On the orders of Edward Ajogun, Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Adebayo would be transferred to the anti-human trafficking and child labour unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further investigation and prosecution.
Ogun is one of the states which has passed the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act into law.
THE VAPP Act is a law that guarantees protection of the rights of victims of all forms of sexual and gender-based violence in the country.
Seun Durojaiye is a journalist with International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).