The police in Lagos State are investigating an alleged rape of a Primary five pupil by a six-man gang in the Bariga area of the state.

The 15-year-old unnamed victim who reportedly turned down the advances of one of the men, identified as Femi, who wanted to date her, was said to have been lured into an apartment on Opeloyeru Street, where the men took turns to rape her.

The victim, an indigene of Kwara State and her father were said to have first reported the case at the Oworonshoki Police Division, which allegedly dismissed it.

However, a family friend took it up and reported it to an agency of the Lagos State Government.

The victim was subsequently taken to the Mirabel Centre of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, for medical tests. According to the victim, since the incident, people in the community had been avoiding her like a plague.

Speaking with The Punch, she said, "I am in Primary five, but I am also an apprentice in a hairdressing shop. I was given a piece of cloth by my boss on January 6, and I needed a tailor to sew it for me. Mr. Femi said he would assist me and I gave him the cloth. "But when I went to him to take my clothes, he told me that he wanted to date me. When the pestering did not stop, I let go of the clothes and stopped communicating with him.

"On Monday, January 11, around 8pm, our landlord's son called me that Abidoye, a neighbour, was looking for me. It was not the first time that I would go to the man's house to run errands for him or his wife, so I thought he wanted to send me on an errand.

"But on entering the room, I discovered it was dark and the man was not around. As I turned back to go, a group of five men, led by the tailor, grabbed me and blocked my mouth. They took turns to rape me. The whole thing lasted for about one hour."

After the ordeal, the victim reportedly started wailing uncontrollably, which caught the attention of her father, identified simply as Adeyemi. Adeyemi, a father of three, expressing sorrow over the incident, said he reported at Oworonshoki, but the police threw away the case. He consequently told his friend who then called the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender, OPD.

He said, "It is a thing of sorrow for me. How can anybody hear that five men raped my daughter? But we have nobody to help us except God." The family friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, urged that justice be done for the victim and the suspects punished to serve as a deterrent to others.

He said, "This is evil at its peak. I can't imagine anybody doing this to my daughter." The OPD referred the case to the Ilupeju Police Division, which then issued the victim a letter to the Mirabel Centre for medical tests and subsequently, the matter was later taken over by the Bariga Police Station, which went after the suspects.

Reports revealed that the police had arrested all the suspects, who are now being interrogated at the Bariga Police Division. Police reports noted that after the arrest of five the suspects, they said there were actually six of them involved in the rape.

The Public Relations Officer of OPD, Adeoba Adeniji-Adele, said victims of rape should protect evidence by not taking a shower after attack, saying sweat was a piece of evidence. "The rate of rape in our society is becoming alarming. We are going to increase our campaign against rape and domestic violence," Adele said.