- Her pregnancy shocking, says closest friend
- Why police can’t charge alleged killer of day-old baby with homicide
It was around 10 am as a group of students numbering more than 50 moved into Lecture Hall II beside the old departmental office of the Public Administration Department, Gombe State University. The two-hour lecture was scheduled to start from 10 am and end at 12 noon, but the lecturer, apparently coming in from another lecture, arrived a bit late.
As soon as she entered the hall, the two entrance doors were shut and Madam lecturer walked straight to the small pulpit in front of the class, opened her laptop and commenced the business of the day.
To her, it was business as usual except for the unnoticed absence of one of her students, Rahab Musa, who suddenly came under the spotlight via the social and conventional news media after she safely delivered a baby boy and threw the innocent tot out the toilet window on September 9.
Twenty three years old Rahab Musa was a quiet and easy going Part Four student of the department until that Saturday when the discovery of the corpse of a day-old baby with placenta behind the toilet of her room in Hall IV of the female hostels brought her into prominence. Prior to this time, Rahab had successfully hidden the pregnancy of the deceased baby from not only the school authority but even Hadaza, her closest friend of more than four years.
Hadaza had noticed that Rahab, though a Christian, was showing up in class and even hostel in hijab. She however had no reason to suspect that something was amiss as she said “even I myself, I do wear hijab sometimes, because the hijab to us is just like any other clothe we can wear at anytime.” Unknown to her, there was more to Rahab’s sudden love for the hijab than met the eye: it was the outcome of her inner struggle with an unwanted pregnancy in her womb.
Rahab, an orphan under the care of a pastor guardian, was in a fix because the pregnancy belonged not to her known boyfriend who lives in Bauchi.
“But she did not tell anyone about her predicament. We were all ready to help her,” Hadaza said regrettably.
“Everyone has been saying I am the closest to her, yet I did not know anything.
“She did not confide in me. If she had confided in me earlier, I would be ready to help her,” said Hadaza.
On the day Rahab went into labour, Hadaza was with her until about 12 midnight when she went to sleep. “I even covered her with clothes on her bed before I left for my room,” she said.
“We were always in the same room until we got to Part Four and found ourselves in separate rooms but still in the same hall.
“Her room mates said that when it was midnight, say around 1:30 am, they came to knock on my room door because she developed complications and was rushed to the school clinic, but there was no response from me.
“It was not her first time of developing such complications. In fact she was in and out of the hospital on many occasions. They were always treating her for ulcers or infection but nobody knows she was pregnant.”
Hadaza however vowed that Rahab was not wayward type and rarely mixes with friends or even go out. She was either in the hostel, class or library, “and that was why the incident came as a rude shock to many of us.
“She doesn’t keep female friends not to talk of male partners, and I am almost with her 24/7. “
Hadaza said that when the doctor told Rahab to go for scan, she was so weak, frail and couldn’t even walk. “So I had to go and look for Keke (commercial tricycle) to take her to the hospital for scan, but she said she wanted to go to the toilet and she stayed long in the toilet.
“I went in to ask her if I should tell the Keke driver to go, because she was staying too long in the toilet and the Keke driver was angry already. Then she said she didn’t need the scan again.
“I asked if she was the one to determine that or the doctor. She said okay, and that was how we went to the hospital.”
Unknown to Hadaza, Rahab had quietly took delivery of a baby boy by herself while she was in the toilet, threw it out of the window with the placenta and cleaned herself up without the knowledge of her two roommates even though the toilet and bathroom was in the same apartment.
An eyewitness said the baby was later discovered by another room mate who had opened the window to spit outside.
Romanus (not real name), another course mate of Rahab, said although he was not so close to her, he had on one occasion paid her a visit in the school clinic when she was admitted but did not notice any sign of pregnancy on her because she was in hijab the day he visited her.
“She was wearing hijab on that day we paid her a visit in the hospital but I didn’t notice any sign of pregnancy on her. I think she was admitted for ulcer then,” he said.
Romanus said it was not the first time such incident would happen in the university, adding that a similar incident was recorded sometime in 2018. According to him, on several occasions there had been reports of abortion in the female hostels.
He said Rahab’s case was peculiar because she was inexperienced and the baby died.
After the baby was found behind the toilet, the environment was immediately condoned off by the university’s security men and it was traced to Rahab room, following which she was arrested by the security men, who later handed her over to the police. It was a thug of war for the varsity security which had to cover Rahab in hijab to protect her from the angry mob outside the female hostels.
The police immediately took Rahab to the State Specialist Hospital for medical attention. Sources in the hospital said when Rahab was brought in, she had lost so much blood and had several tears on her private part as a result of the crude delivery. “She had to be stitched and she was given three pints of blood and placed in the intensive care unit. She was looking so frail and weak,” said Hadaza.
The varsity authority had to come to her rescue by taking up the hospital bills because, according to our source, “she is an indigent student.”
In a four-paragraph statement signed by the Public Relations Officer, Mohammed Abubakar, the university frowned at the incident, describing it as shocking to the management and entire university community.
The statement reads: “On Saturday 9th September 2023, an incident happened in the university in which a female undergraduate student threw away a baby she gave birth to, which resulted in the death of the baby. The incident has shocked the management and the entire university community.
“The university wants to state clearly that it has no room for any criminal behavior. The management of the university has already forwarded the case to the police for proper investigation.
“Please be assured that the university will take necessary disciplinary action once the investigations are concluded.”
The Nation investigation revealed that though the incident was not the first in the institution, what is worrisome is the way and manner the day-old baby was disposed off by the mother; an action which raised concern on an alleged school rule which forbids an undergraduate single female student from getting pregnant while still in school.
However, a source in the university quickly dismissed it, saying there is no such rule in the university. Our source said the university cannot make a rule that will run contrary to the extant law of the land.
“Besides, such rule will be in violation of the human rights of the students. The student has the right to her body and she can do whatever he or she likes with it. It is when it comes to moral ground that the university can say or make a rule that maybe a pregnant student should not be in the hostel because she needs proper care.”
Gombe State University Dean of students Affairs, Professor Hassana Bello, while confirming the incident, said she had no permission to speak on it “because the matter has been transfered to the legal department.”
At the Legal department, the university Legal Officer, Barrister Ibrahim Kalayi, said the matter was no longer in the university’s domain but with the police. “Besides, nobody will want to talk on this. It is only the Vice Chancellor that can speak through the university Public Relations Officer, and I think they have issued a statement and that is enough,” he said.
The Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Mahid Mua’zu confirmed that the matter had been handed over to the police for investigation.
He said: “Investigation is still in progress on it and we will contact you when we complete the investigation. But for now there is no access to the lady because of her health condition.
Earlier, when the news was broken on the social media, the police felt embarrassed that such an incident was not reported by the school authority before it was found on the social media.
When our correspondent called the PPRO earlier on September 9, he had said the police was only aware of the matter on the social media like every other Nigerian but it had not been reported to them.
“As I am talking to you, I only know of the incident via the social media like you but we have not received any formal report from the university. So I can say informally we are aware of it, but formally, no report on it yet,” he said.
The Nation investigation revealed that the state government also felt embarrassed on sighting the incident on social media and called the state police commissioner, Mr. Oqua Etim, who also denied knowledge of it.
The police commissioner immediately put a call to Gombe Police Division whose jurisdiction covered the university. The DPO, was who was also alarmed by the incident, ordered the arrest of a top GSU official and detained him.
Our source disclosed that it was later in the day when Rahab was arrested and detained in hospital that the top varsity official was released.
On Sunday, October 10, The Nation correspondent received a call from the PPRO, ASP Mahid Mua’zu, informing him that the matter had been formally reported to the police and investigation had commenced.
“It was this Sunday that the matter was formally reported to us and we have commenced investigation on it already,” he said.
When our correspondent was asked to be allowed access to Rahab who was detained at the Specialist Hospital Gombe, he said “no one is allowed to see her for now. When investigation is concluded, we will invite you to come over for the briefing.
“Besides, the matter is being handled directly by the state police commissioner.”At the time of filing this report, The Nation found out that Rahab, who was detained at the Specialist Hospital Gombe with two police officers around her, has been granted bail by the state CID and released to her guardian pastor who lives in Filiya at Shongom local government area of the state.
The Nation investigation also revealed that Rahab was granted bail not only on health ground but because the police and the varsity authority are finding it difficult to pin the death of the day-old baby on her.
“So far, there is no witness to confirm that the baby was alive at birth because before she can be charged for homicide, it must be confirmed that the baby was not stillbirth.
“At present, none of her roommates was with her during delivery, and all of them said they did not know that she was pregnant or took delivery of any baby” said our source who sought anonymity.
However, the concern of Rahab’s course mates is whether she will be allowed to sit the first semester examination, “because at the moment, we are writing tests which carry 40 per cent of the marks. If she is not allowed to write the examination, it means she might not graduate with us, and that will be very painful because she has suffered a lot.”
A social media report had earlier stated that Rahab was suspended for one session, but a source at the university dismissed it, saying there was nothing like that at the moment. The source said the frail structure of Rahab clearly showed that she has been struggling in her studies with no proper care.
“Available reports said she has been treating chronic ulcers. This might not be unconnected with the fact that she was not having adequate meals per day, and the fact that she is an orphan living with a pastor and without experience make it more difficult for her.”
Another source among the students said the fear of stigmatization and the shame of carrying a baby outside of wedlock as the daughter of a pastor might be the driving force behind her actions.
“I know her as a very quiet person and she keeps to herself a lot. So all of us in the class were shocked when we heard of it. It was like it is not real, it cannot be her.
“But there nobody above mistake, I think the university should help her to complete her studies because she had suffered a lot.”
