Three teenage Fulani herders arrested in Bauchi for allegedly gang-raping a girl in Itas/Gadau Local Government Area of the state have said they committed the crime to experiment what they saw in pornographic videos. The suspects, who spoke separately to journalists while being paraded at the police command headquarters in Bauchi on Wednesday, narrated the roles they played in the crime.
The prime suspect, 15-year-old Jauro, the eldest among them, said they saw their victim in a bush and conspired among themselves to rape her. He said, “I live in Itas/Gadau LGA. I am a cattle rearer. I used to be a student of a Quranic school there, but I have stopped attending. I was brought here (police command headquarters) because I raped a girl.
“She is not my wife; we only saw her in the bush while we were rearing our cattle. I didn’t know her before; I just heard her name when we got here. I decided to rape her because I had an urge. I had been watching pornographic videos in my phone, so I had been seeking an opportunity to experiment. I also inserted my penis in her mouth as was done in the porn videos I saw.”
Another suspect, Abdu (14), admitted to defiling the victim after the first suspect “finished with her.”
He said, “It was last week Friday that we committed the crime. We saw her in the bush when she and her sisters went to pluck fruit. We ran after them; while others escaped, she fell and we took advantage of her. But it was only the two of us that did it; the third person held her while we violated her.”
The third suspect, Saleh (13), said he did not take part in the act. “I only held her for a little while to enable them (pointing to his friends) to have their turns,” he added.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Bauchi State Command, Ahmed Wakil, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, had told journalists that the suspects allegedly committed the crime on Friday, January 8, 2021, as was reported at the divisional police headquarters in Itas. He said the three suspects were arrested after the victim and her parents reported the matter to the police.