How A Soon-To-Wed DSS Pervert Sexually Abused Deaf, Blind Students In A School

Demola Adeleke, a UK based, visually impaired Nigerian and an Ambassador of the World Literacy Foundation narrates this harrowing tale of disability based violence. The setting of the grim events is a boarding school for disabled girls in the Northern part of Nigeria.

A blind lady our NGO is sponsoring through school once told us how, in the dead of the night, an unknown man would break into their school hostel and mercilessly squeeze the breasts of all the blind girls around, after which he’d then escape into the night.

This news only intensified my reservations about the school. For starters, I personally do not like the setup. It’s a special school in Northern Nigeria where students with all sort of sensory impairments were, and are still kept together in one place.

Deaf and blind students are made to live in the same hostel, share the same room even, and you can imagine how almost impossible communication within the groups would be. With no other choice, however, especially as the 26-year-old lady in question lives in the North with her mum and was unwilling to travel to Lagos for her training, we decided to let her remain in the school and support her from there.

Then came the news of the breast squeezer shortly after her enrollment. All the members of my team were afraid for her. We were even more disturbed to learn that the school was trivialising the nightly assault of the girls and wouldn’t take any precautionary actions to stop it.

Our beneficiary, resigning to Fate and believing there was no way she could escaped from having her breast fondled by the lunatic, then resorted to going to bed fully clothed. To her, at least the unknown man, when out on his nightly parade, will only squeeze her breast from within her clothes and not have the pleasure of doing it skin to skin.

It was later that we learnt the deaf girls were not left out in this. The psychotic breast squeezer, ever the cunning one, would finish his rounds with the blind girls first before moving on to the deaf girls. ‘Cunning’ because while working on the blind girls’ breasts and they were screaming explitives at him, the deaf girls who were supposedly within earshorts unfortunately could not hear anything. So, still very much unsuspecting, the deaf girls’ breasts would be next to get squeezed and sometimes sucked.
It was total insanity. The matter was reportedly brought to the school management repeatedly, especially by the blind girls who were expectedly more vocal, but nothing was done about it. The hostel matron, presumably a mother herself, would reportedly wave the girls off like they were mosquitoes buzing around her ears.

Some of the deaf girls, tired of the assault, resorted to staying up until late in the night and keeping their eyes sharp in an attempt to spot the intruder when approaching, and although they indeed saw him a couple of times, they were no match for him as he’d quickly disappear as soon as he had appeared upon realising that his victims were on the alert.

Well, that was one year ago. Yes, one whole year of having to endure getting their mammary glands, both budding and fully developed ones, fondled like a piece of cheap toy. During this period, we could only advise our beneficiary to be careful at all times.

Then came the news of the intruder’s arrest this week. The perv was reportedly captured, not by the school authority nor police as you might have expected, but by the combined efforts of the male students of the school and the corps members as well as student teachers deployed to the school.

Following the man’s arrest, five facts have emerged:

1. The breast squeezer is reportedly a DSS agent. That may explain his ability to stay in the shadows during his nightly assaults on the girls, which he surprisingly did for 9 years by the way.

2. His wedding to his fiancee is in a few days’ time.

3. He admitted to repeatedly raping five of the deaf girls in their hostel. Raped one 12 times and another one for two years straight.

He did this by switching off the lights, then grabbing his victims and dragging them to a secluded corner in the school. Unfortunately, the deaf victims, often minors between age 11 – 16, are dumb and thus cannot scream for help.

4. The hostel matron who repeatedly got complained to and repeatedly shooed the girls away is now under custody at the police station. Let me add that she, the matron, also has a 15-year-old ward at home who, now that she’s in police custody, is a concern for her as no one is home to protect her.

5. The principal of the school is reportedly being demoted for watching on as such horrible act was perpetuated under his nose for 9 years. We’re not yet sure if he’d also be arrested or not.

Disability based violence is real. It’s a very, very traumatising thing to experience, especially when committed by a DSS agent with disappearing skills.

P.S. Pic attached is one of the female hostels of the school. I’m restraining myself from mentioning the name of the school rn.