Two years after the death of -14-year-old Keren-Happuch Aondodoo Akpagher, a boarding student of Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja, her family has accused the police of a grand cover-up and insincerity in its investigation.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, mother of the late 14-year-old, Mrs Vivien Vihimga Akpagher lamented the failure of government and relevant agencies of government to apprehend the culprits and bring them to book.
Keren died on the 22nd of June 2021 after contracting sepsis from a condom left inside her by a killer-rapist, which compromised her immunity spike her blood sugar, causing hyperglycaemia.
“Since the death of my beloved child, Keren, whom I entrusted to the management of Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja in their boarding care, neither relevant government agencies not the police have been sensitive, faithful or committed to fishing out the culprit or culprits, who did not only rape her, but sodomised and left condom inside her while threatening and numbing her into silence”, Mrs Akpagher lamented.
She said the police also failed to retrieve CCTV footages from the 54 camera in the school, which would have shown that Keren was unable to walk to class and was in pain crying, noting that instead, the police allowed the school to tamper with evidence.
The statement from Mrs. Akpagher reads:
’’Since the death of my beloved child, Keren, whom I entrusted to the management of Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja in their boarding care, neither relevant government agencies not the police have been sensitive, faithful or committed to fishing out the culprit or culprits, who did not only rape her, but sodomised and left condom inside her while threatening and numbing her into silence.
Let me provide a plethora of evidence of acts of compromise by the police or a conspiracy of silence and inaction against government and relevant institutions in the following order:
Upon reporting the complaint of rape and death of my daughter to the FCT Police Command on the 22nd of June 2021 and identified Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja as the prime suspect since she was a boarding student there in addition to credible intelligence given to me by a staff of the school that a few days earlier (16th of June 2021) that Keren was in pains, crying and unable to walk to class from the hostel, what did the police do?
i. The police asked me for a mobilisation fee of N1.2 million naira to start work. I eventually gave them N800,000.
ii. They failed to conduct impartial investigation, instead they allowed the school to dictate to them who to interview including students whom the school had coached.
iii. They even summoned me to the station to investigate me for hearsay claims by a parent of one of their students that I was never at home to take care of Keren, who was in a boarding house. The question you all should ask is – how does my being at home save my child from being raped in the custody of Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja.
iv. Then the FCT Police Command eventually started using all sorts of arm-twisting tactics to prevent us from seeking justice for Keren, tactics which included arrest and gagging of the lead social justice crusader and journalist, Lemmy Ughegbe.
v. NOTE that a lot more shenanigans occurred at the FCT Command, which eroded our confidence and prompted us to ask for a transfer of the case to the Force Headquarters.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, the FCT Police Command held onto and refused to give me, mother of the child the medical report, autopsy report and police report on the death of my child. As I speak, I still do NOT have any of it but the school has been reported by Punch Newspaper to have shown their reporter copies of those reports.
FORCE Gender Unit of The Force CID
We had hope that with the then DCP Gender (now CP) Margaret Ochalla that fairness and equity will be done in investigation. But sadly, she also compromised the case.
i. Lemmy Ughegbe and I shared credible intelligence with her on their retrieving footages from the 54 CCTV cameras in Premiere Academy Lugbe, Abuja. We argued that since a senior member of staff disclosed that the child could not walk to class and had to be helped by her classmates in tears and pain, CCTV footages would unravel what had happened. To our utter shock, instead of the police swinging into action and going for the footages, they called the school to politely request them to bring footages. WHERE ON EARTH IS THAT A PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE? Where do you ask a suspect to bring evidence that may incriminate him? IN THE END, the school claims that “their CCTV footages automatically delete themselves at the end of every month. TAKE NOTE that the school, which has offered that UNBELIEVABLE excuse was able to preserve the footage of 19th of June, but could not preserve the real evidence of 15th and16th of June?
Assuming without conceding that they were honest, committed police would have recovered the footages, but not a compromised one.
ii. We said we needed to be part of the process of DNA matching. But when the police wanted to go and collect the debris of condom and dead spermatozoa to do DNA matching with suspects from the school, they did not notify us. INSTEAD, they went to the hospital with the school and collected everything not samples. This is evidence of a lopsided investigation and collusion to compromise the evidence and that is exactly what they did. AS WE SPEAK, because their hands are NOT clean, 2 years after, they can NOT tell us the result.
iii. We told then DCP Ochalla, now, CP, we wanted to also take samples and send abroad in order to compare outcomes and told her that the school is also at liberty to do so, but she ended up doing behind our back but with the full notice and participation of the school. Where is integrity in the process.
’’PAULINE TALLEN, National Human Rights Commission & FCT Social Development Secretariat
We wish to put on record how the then Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen rebuffed us and paid no heed to our cries for justice for Keren. The National Human Rights Commission failed to tell us the outcome of our petition received from Lemmy Ughegbe, seeking justice for Keren. The same fate befell us at the FCT Social Development Secretariat. A clear case of the conspiracy of silence and inaction by stakeholders who should drive the process for justice.
As I have always said, nothing will bring my daughter back. So, when I fight to demand justice, it is because I do NOT want the fate that befell Keren to befall any other child after her. I do not want any other mother to walk in my shoes and be in the space I have been in the last 2 years plus. Nothing I do will bring Keren back. Absolutely nothing. But I have done what my child would have expected me to do. I have raised my voice to ensure that her story is told. AND I thank Lemmy Ughegbe for risking his life and putting in his time and substance to support me and hold me up. I thank him, Men Against Rape Foundation and Amnesty International for helping me and my family.
The road ahead is still quite steep. Healing seems so far away. I am in a bad place. But I saw a message recently, which my daughter left me in a book. She told the story of how she was abused brutally. She said they were old men who kept molesting her. Sadly, she did not name them. But she rounded off the message by asking me to focus my energy on her brothers to help them survive the wicked world.
Surely, she is in a better place. And it is time to focus on her brothers. As a family, we shall begin the healing process. It will not be easy. But by God, we shall do all that is possible, to heal. We shall keep Keren’s memory alive with Keren’s Safe Haven Foundation.
I have lived through hell in these last few years. Now, I know what trauma is. I have listened to my beloved child and dropped the N10Billion suit I filed against her school. This is a step in my healing process, for me, as an individual and as a family. I know that the truth will be unravelled one day. And as much as I now want to withdraw into privacy and begin the healing process with my family, I know that the insensitive school will go public with propaganda. When they come to you – tell them to provide CCTV footages of 15th and 16th of June 2021. If they do that and you go through it and do not find anything about Keren’s abuse – I will go on national television to apologise, but until then it is my position that my daughter was raped, sodomised and bullied into silence in that school until she died. They tampered with evidence to escape justice.’’
Signed
Vivien Vihimga Akpagher
The Conclave
