Inhabitants of Camp Yabassi neighbourhood last Friday turned out in their numbers at their Palace in an apparent mobilisation to lynch 29-year-old Ombono Bade, uncle to Assogoma Doriane, for raping the latter. The angry mob, which trooped in from the nooks and crannies of the neighbourhood incessantly beat the walls of the quarter head Palace, demanding the accused to be sent to them, apparently to be lynched. But it took not only the intervention of Camp Yabassi notables but also notables from Yoro in the Mbam and Inoubou Division to calm the flaring tempers.
The rapist told notables at the Palace that he touched only her buttocks and if he is being blamed for committing rape he thinks both him and 14-year-old Assogoma Doriane should be blamed rather for practising incest. As the grilling went on, Ombono pleaded it was the first time he raped her niece. This is Doriane’s testimony collected during Friday’s preliminary inquiry by the notables: “It is since 2006 that my uncle, Uncle Max, raped me for the first time. I told my mother, but she didn’t believe me. Last Wednesday, September 8, 2010, he (Uncle Max, as the little girl called Ombono Bade) met me in the toilet, started touching me and after he went into me full force. It was about 7 a.m. and, apart from the two of us that were up, the other family members were still sleeping. I told my sister Carole and she took the matter to my mother. Uncle Max is my mother’s younger brother. When my sister told my mother, she started crying but later alerted my Aunt, Anita. Since the act took place till now I am feeling a lot of pains.”
Ombono, who was arrested by family members and close neighbours last Friday and brought to the Palace of the quarter head, missed the wrath of an aggrieved public which mobilised in front of the Palace, apparently, to lynch him should a fitting opportunity arose. At press time, His Royal Highness Onougou Simplice of Yoro, however, had decided the matter be settled at family level and a traditional cleansing rite be conducted on the duo.
