Notorious Water Vendor Rapist Nabbed In Kano

One Samaila Abubakar, a water vendor, has been arrested for allegedly specialising in raping housewives in Gabarsawa Quarters in Dala Local Government Area of Kano State.

It was reliably learnt that the water vendor who was arrested yesterday had long been terrorising women in the area but met his Waterloo on that fateful early hour when men usually go for Morning Prayer in the mosque.

According to some of the residents at the quarters, the 45-year old water vendor, Samaila, who is a father of nine children and a husband of four wives normally operates during early morning hour of prayer when husbands are in the mosque praying.

Residents of the area who declined their names being mentioned said that “during the day, the suspect goes round the area for his water business but at dawn he sneaks into women apartments which are strictly for them according to our religious practice and this is when men have gone to the mosque for the dawn prayers. He uses knife to threaten women so as have his way”.

They said this action of the suspect became worrisome to them and this made them to dress a boy like a woman who laid down in a room, pretending he was sleeping, adding that as the boy was in the room, the water vendor entered into the room and while trying to carry out his usual operation, he was arrested and handed over to Hisbah officials.

Narrating how the suspect was arrested, a youth, Muhammadu Kabir, who took over from the elderly people, said: “We have to get some boys planted around and dressed one like a female and set him as a trap, he laid down as he was sleeping”.

A cross section of the water vendor’s victims who spoke on the man described him as a notorious rapist while one Alhassan Aliyu, a husband to one the victims, said his wife was forced to put to birth following the fear of the notorious rapist Samaila.

“The first time he attacked my wife was last year while she was forced to deliver premature baby because of fear. One day, I was about to go to the mosque for dawn prayer and I met the water vendor by the gate and I was scared but I didn’t know who he was but I eventually left to the mosque.

“Unfortunately, he came back after he realised that I had left; he entered my house. The next voice I heard was my wife who started screaming because the suspect always operates with a knife. Thank God she did not sustain any injury”, he said. He said that because of the ‘terrorist water vendor’, he had to abandon his business trips.

Another victim, Yusuf Yunus , also said that “there was a time when the suspect attempted to enter his house, adding “he was using torchlight to illuminate my gate but the moment he saw me, he ran away. But another day he came and tried to force himself into my house and my wife saw him and she started shouting, “who is there, who is there”, and he ran away”.

An official of Kano Hisbah Board in Dala Local Government Area of Kano State, Abubakar Mati Salihu, confirmed the arrest, saying that the arrest of the suspect has forced the residents of the area to suspend going to early morning prayers.

“There was a time the suspect attacked a lady selling akala and akamu, but however the lady said she was not ready to go to court and pursuing the case, but this time around many relatives of those victims are ready to testify against him,” he said.

Meanwhile, the suspect has been handed over to the police by the Hisbah Board for prosecution and he would soon be charged to court.