A 21-year-old student of University
of Lagos has been hospitalised, after she was allegedly pushed down from the
third floor of a building in Lagos, following a disagreement with a man she met
on the social network, Facebook.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
reports that Akabugu Nkiruka
sustained multiple injuries, including a pelvis fracture, and was undergoing
surgery at the General Hospital, Marina, Lagos, on Tuesday [Nov. 6].
Nkiruka, a
Linguistics student of the University of Lagos, told NAN on her hospital bed
that she met the young man through the social media, barely a week before the
November 1 incident.
She told NAN that the 26-year-old man
(name withheld) last Wednesday invited her to a night club in Apapa from where
they ended up in his family home at 1004 Estate, Victoria Island, Lagos.
She noted that the young man had
earlier talked about sex on the phone prior to the outing but she told him she
was menstruating. Nkiruka said on
getting to the house, the man tore her dress and tried to rape her.
According to Nkiruka, the man
thereafter pushed her down from the third floor of the building because she
refused to have sex with him.
When contacted, the man’s mother, who
was at home on the night of the incident, however, told NAN that she was not
aware of what happened. She said she slept around 10pm, while the disagreement
between the couple started much later.
The mother, who pleaded anonymity,
said she paid part of the hospital bill immediately after Nkiruka was admitted, and even tried to transfer her to a private
hospital.
“I
took her as our own daughter and so, I can do anything that will make her
recover quickly”, she added.
She insisted that her preliminary
inquiry indicated that Nkiruka was
not pushed by her son as alleged, but that she jumped on her own in the ensuing
scuffle.
When contacted, the Divisional Police
Officer of Bar Beach, Victoria Island, Lagos, Mr. Fayoade Adegoke, told NAN that Nkiruka wrote in her statement that she jumped on her own, in order
to escape being raped.
Adegoke said he
ordered his men to convey the victim to the hospital immediately after he was
informed of the incident by security guards in the area.
The DPO said the suspect was released
on bail, pending further investigation into the matter.
NAN recalls that seven young men,
including two who met a 24-year-old post-graduate student, Cynthia Osokogu, on facebook, are currently facing trial for
allegedly raping and killing her in Lagos earlier this year.