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             Father impregnates 12-year-old daughter

How will 12-year-old Joy (not real name) explain to her child that his father also doubles as his grandfather? Joy is about four months pregnant and her father is responsible for the pregnancy.

Her father, Ben Philip, 37, an indigene of Itam, Cross River State, did not deny the incest. But he accused his daughter of seducing him and contested that Joy was 15 and not 12 as she claimed, adding that they only had sex twice.

Philip told PUNCH METRO, "By the way, she is not 12 years, but 15 years. The first time it happened, she was the one that came to me naked on the bed. I beat her and told her to go away, she came back and pushed herself on me and I am a man.

"It was not also true that I have been having sex with her repeatedly. It could not be more than twice. Sometimes I used condom with her, sometimes I don't. And she was not a virgin when I met her for the first time.

"This girl's mother ran away from my house and she went to marry another man. I married another woman and that one had twins for me. She died in 2005 and soon afterwards I went to pick her (Joy) from the village to take care of the kids for me because I did not remarry.

"All this while, nothing happened between us until when I had cause to change my accommodation and job to be able to monitor my children, particularly Joy. I had a report that some young boys in our area were wooing her. I did not know that it would happen to me. And it is not true that I threatened her whenever she restricted. The truth is that she had never resisted me. She, too, enjoyed it."

But Joy gave a different account, which suggested that she might have been having sex with Philip, the man he called father, against her wish.

Joy said, "I am 12 years plus. The first time he did it with me, he came to the second room I was sharing with my twin brothers and said I should come and fan him. He gave me something that contained alcohol and I slept off after fanning him for a while. The second day I was very weak when I woke up. I later knew that he did it with me while I was sleeping.

"Since then, he has been having sex with me and I can't count how many times we have done it. We did it many times. Anytime he wanted to have sex with me, he would force me to drink something that contained alcohol.

"He said he would kill me if I told anybody and we did it many times in his room and also in my room. At times when the twins were asleep, we did it."

She said that it was their neighbours that noticed that she was pregnant and later confronted her, adding, "I don't know who to tell, I don't even know my mummy."

Contrary to her father's claim, Joy said she was a virgin until her father defiled her. "It was a lie. He was the only man that was having sex with me. Apart from Papa, nobody had had sex with me," Joy said.

Lagos police spokesman, Frank Mba, who described the act as "reprehensible and horrifying," said the police became aware of the incident when one of Philip's neighbours lodged a complaint at Ipakodo police station on June 8, 2010.

Mba, a Superintendent of Police, said that a teacher in a private school where Joy attended in Ikorodu, an outskirt of Lagos State, had also noticed the primary six pupil pregnant.

According to him, "The teacher told Joy's father about her discovery, but Philip said it was not true. However, the neighbour and the teacher confronted the girl who confessed that her father had been having sex with her and she was pregnant for him.

"When the case was reported to the police, we took her to Ikorodu General Hospital and the result of the pregnancy test conducted was positive."

He explained that police preliminary investigation showed that Joy was under constant threat from her father not to reveal what had been going on between them.

Mba said that the police would charge Phillip with defilement. "I have also contacted human rights group because we are not only concerned with convicting the father alone, the rehabilitation of the girl is also important," he said.