The entire incident was captured in an audio recording made by the lady. Steve had lured her to a guest house on the pretext of having a discussion with her.
In the two-hour-long audio, Steve clearly tells the young lady, in Hausa Language, that he loves her. In the room’s background, a television set is left on with a high volume.
“Me, I know how to love somebody o,” he says. “If I love you, one thing I hate is that when I show you love, you show me that you are not there for me. That will make me feel bad about you. That’s my life.
“If I show you love, you show me that you are there for me. I don’t take anything as anything. The fact is that I don’t want a situation whereby you will be feeling somehow about me.”
The young lady insists she is not ready for a relationship as she wants to focus on herself and her studies.
“It’s all right if we are friends. I’m fine being friends, but we can’t be nothing more,” she says.
Despite her insistence on not having anything to do with him, Steve is persistent. “I don’t want to come close, please. Stop forcing me to,” the lady says.
“I don’t know you. I just know your name is Steve and we only met once. We are not familiar with each other.
“Is this how you treat every random lady that you meet? I didn’t think you were a questionable somebody, but you are making me question your character.”
Steve on his part keeps insisting that he wants her to love him.
At a point, the lady demands to go home because it is getting late and she has to get home before 6 pm.
Steve keeps on begging her and even goes as far as kneeling down to plead with her to consider him. When he tries hugging her, she insists that she doesn’t want to be hugged and just wants to go home.
“I don’t want to be hugged. I don’t want any physical contact. Hug is a physical contact and I don’t want,” she says.
“If you don’t want to take me home, I can go home myself. I have my money.”
At that moment, the lady made a move to take her bag and leave the room. Steve who couldn’t hold it in any longer pounced on her and overpowered her.
While the young lady is screaming her lungs out, Steve, who seems to be strangling her in the audio, says, “You want to shout abi? Shout again; let me hear you.”
“Shout let me see you. You are very stupid. Keep shouting. You have forgotten this is a hotel room.”
The lady becomes quiet after that and can be heard begging Steve to let her go.
“I’m sorry, please…,” she says repeatedly while crying.
In the audio, Steve tells her that if she had not made him upset, it wouldn’t have got to that.
FIJ made several calls to Kenji Steve but they were not answered. A text message sent to him had also not been responded to at press time.
FIJ had reported how a Nasarawa State-based student of Ecoces University, Cotonou, Benin Republic, accused Steve of luring her into a hotel room and raping her on April 15.
This report was produced with support from the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability project (CMEDIA) funded by the MacArthur Foundation
