‘Sodomy In Abuja School’: FG Reacts, Says No Single Sign Of Molestation Of Deaf Pupils

Following an outcry by concerned parents, the federal government has reacted to an alleged sexual molestation of pupils at the Abuja school for the deaf, Kuje.

On Monday, presenter and founder of Brekete Family, a radio magazine and reality programme in Abuja, popularly known as Ordinary Ahmad Isah, alerted security agencies after a parent, Dr Hannatu Ayuba Usman, said her deaf child was sodomised, forced to drink human blood and eat human flesh while at school.

The victim, Imran, 6, according to his parents, was born deaf with heart defect. He was operated when he two years old.

His grandmother, Salamatu Abubakar Amina, who said Imran had narrated the incident that occurred while he was in school via sign language, said the pupils were also drugged during visiting days so that the parents have no clue of the matter.

Narrating the incident on the show, Amina said, “He had just spent one term at the Abuja School for the Deaf, Kuje.

“I washed his things and arranged everything in his school box. When he was told we were taking him back to school, he said school? I don’t want to go back to that school. I said why, he said he will die. Then he started demonstrating to us how when they sleep at night, they are woken up and tied and sodomised.

“That they did it many times to him, that it was painful. That red thing, blood will be coming out. That his back is paining him and his head is paining him.

“Then, he said that they take them out at night to somewhere, that there are many men no woman at that place. That their master is tall, that he climbed something to address them. That they kill people there. He demonstrated how they kill, three ways that they kill. They turn the head, or they cut the throat or they pull the head and sever the head at the neck.

“That there is fire, that they roast human being there. That the man went round the house to look for a glove. He said that glove is a different type of glove that the man will use a knife and big fork to cut the roasted human flesh and the boys will have their hands behind. Then the man will feed every person with that meat. And that anytime they bring it near him, he will start vomiting and they will hit him.

“He counted on his fingers six times they tried to feed him. And he was vomiting and they kept hitting him, that his head is now paining him. He said back in the school, he wanted to tell the class teacher but they told him if he dares tell anybody, they will kill him. And he has seen how they were killing other people.

“Since we took him to that school, I was personally visiting him every two weeks, sometimes before two weeks, because I was bothered about his health. He doesn’t eat much, he doesn’t eat pepper. And in that school I was told they usually don’t feed them early. They give them breakfast long after 10am. So they had an arrangement with a woman who comes to the school with rice and stew and they paid N100 per serving. So we usually buy golden-morn, milk and provisions for him.

“So he showed us his arm. The place was black. So he went to the medicine cupboard and looked for a syringe. Then he said ‘this but big’. That they draw blood from his hand. They put it in a cup and that man drinks it.”

Continuing, Imran’s mother, said, “He demonstrated to us in sign language, that because they kept giving us meat, that he wasn’t going to eat, he was always vomiting. Then the leader there said take him away. Then they took a nail, hit on wood, he went round a house got a plank and a nail, told us to hit it, then they hit it on his forehead above his right eye, then he was bleeding and bleeding.

“Then the leader took him and swirl him around and threw him, then he fell down, he hit his head and body and he was crying.

“Then the school father took him back to the school, laid him on the bed and he slept off.

“He said when they are in pains and crying they use handkerchief and pour something like a solution on the nose and press with a handkerchief so he sleeps off.

“So in the morning, the school father took him to the nurse at the sick bay and told the teacher that there was a fight, there was a boy was in the hostel who is retarded, washed his socks and then Imran went touch the socks with a dirty hand and the boy took a belt and hit him on the fore head.

“So the teacher called me, but she told me not to worry that you know these deaf children, they were fighting, somebody hit him on the head that even the place has a mouth but she has taken him to the sick bay and they have treated hm. So she consoled me and told me no problem.

“So he told us when he came back that it was a lie, that it was in that place that they hit his head on the nail.

“Then he said that they dip their penis inside their throat and if they vomit the semen, they will take a plank and hit their throat.

“Then I told him is it only you, he said no it’s not only him, ‘all the small small boys and they will be crying argghh….’

“When we took him to the hospital, the doctors saw him at the family medicine department and they confirmed that he had seizures features and he has been sexually molested. Now when he sleeps, there is shit in his pant. Every morning he shows me. Now he cannot chew, his jaws are aching, even bread he cannot chew. Just one term he spent in the school. He must do surgery in his anus. He has to do an MRI which we cannot even afford, then they have to do a surgery.

“Imagine the kind of torment this child is going through and majority of them are very poor and they cannot communicate with their children in sign language.”

Mrs Usman further said she had taken the issue to the principal of the school who advised that she be patient because once the matter get to the police, the deaf children can be maltreated.

She said the principal further said he doesn’t want any issue and wants to retire in peace as the immediate past principal died after entering a coma, after the student had attacked him and beat him severely.

She lambasted parents who quietly withdrew their children from the school instead of crying out after similar incidents may have happened to them.

She further said the issue was taken to the Ministry of Education but she was never notified during the course of the investigation.

“The PTA chairman said that they wanted to meet the parents of the child but he didn’t say anything about the ministry of education,” she said.

In reaction, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, said the government immediately swung into action by carrying out a preliminary investigation into the matter and after the investigation, no single sign of molestation was found.

Echono, according to The Nation, said the government again visited the school on Tuesday with a team of medical doctors and ordered a thorough examination on 40 pupils and no sign of any form of molestation found on their bodies.

“We have done full investigation, involved the DSS and did surveillance for ten days.

“We embedded DSS operatives among the staff claiming they were posted there just to be watching day and night in the school to try and find out if anything unusual is going on.

“I called 64 different parents to find out if there had been any case, even of a child dying in the school not to talk about missing. There was no such case.

“We did 40 examinations today physically with their parents, covered no such single case out of the 40 that we did today. Medical doctors and gynecologists, did the test today and not a single case have been found.

“We are going to address a press conference when we finish,” Echono said.