Fifteen-year-old Patience Paul, the schoolgirl allegedly abducted in
Sokoto and forcefully converted to Islam, has recounted how she was
abducted, held in captivity and sexually abused for seven months in
Sarkin Baki (king of strangers’) residence in Sokoto State.
Patience, who hails from Benue State, went missing on August 12, 2015.
But reprieve came the way of the kidnapped girl and her family after the
Sokoto State governor, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, ordered an
investigation into the matter, which resulted in her release and
subsequent reunion with her family.
LEADERSHIP gathered from Patience that her abductor and some Hisbah
(Sharia police) personnel had taken her to an imam in Runjin Sambo area
of Sokoto with a claim that she wanted to convert to Islam.
Patience said, “I was sent to buy biscuits and on my way I saw him (her abductor) and he persuaded me to come to his bungalow.”
The primary six pupil disclosed that she was not forced into marriage
but that her abductor turned her into a sex slave at the house of the
Sarkin Baki.
“Yes, he was forcefully making love to me any time he wanted,” she
answered to a question on whether she was sexually abused. “They first
took me to Sarkin Baki house, and kept me there for seven months before
my parents came looking for me.
“They gave me something to drink, but I refused to take the drink, and they took me to one room and locked me inside the room.
“They forcefully made me to turn to Muslim and gave me another name,
Aisha. Some people wanted to marry me, but the Sarkin Baki refused and
said until I finish Islamic school before they marry me off.
Addressing a press conference in Kaduna, a lawyer with a Jos, Plateau
State-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Voice for the Girl’s
Child Foundation (VGCF), Barrister Ezekiel Dyagas, who helped in
securing Patience’s release, said he was briefed about her case on March
1, 2016, by her brother.
Patience’s elder brother, Isaac Paul, 28, who had just graduated from
the University of Sokoto and is awaiting NYSC call-up, thanked Nigerians
for assisting the family to recover their daughter.
He said
their mother was late while their father worked as a steward in Sokoto,
adding that Patience is the sixth child in the family of nine.
Paul
also thanked journalists and the Sokoto State government for wiping
their tears, just as he noted that the Benue State government had
promised to enrol Patience in school.
