Terna Taga, the eighteen-year-old man who raped and impregnated a 10-year-old internally displaced person, Masenengen Targba, has said he he did not meet the girl a virgin.
Targba was on Sunday bandoned at a hospital but later rushed to Foundation Memorial Hospital, Makurdi, where she gave birth to a baby girl.
Taga, who was paraded by the Benue State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Garuba, told newsmen that, “I actually slept with her twice in December last year and it was with her consent. I did not rape her and since then, every effort to get close to her proved abortive as she was always running away whenever I saw her.
“It was around May this year, l saw her with pregnancy and I tried to engage her in a talk but she ran away.”
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Taga said after she was delivered of a baby, his cousin informed him that Masenengen mentioned his name as the father of her child, adding that he accepted responsibility as the baby’s father and went to the hospital to see her.
He stated, “It was while I was at the hospital that the police arrested me. The first time I met her, she only came to my house and told me that her uncle sent her away from the house and that she didn’t have a place to sleep and I offered to accommodate her in my house that night.
“I gave her food and allowed her to sleep without touching her. The next day, she returned saying the same story and it was then that I slept with her for the first time. Then I slept with her another time. In all, I slept with her twice.”
On whether the girl was not too young for him to sleep with, Taga said, “I never thought she was too young when I was sleeping with her. But the truth is that I didn’t meet her a virgin. She wasn’t a virgin at all.”