JOHANNESBURG - Amnesty International Nigeria has condemned the vicious rape and murder of Vera Omozuwa at a church while the 22-year-old University of Benin student was studying in an auditorium.
Omozuwa died on Saturday from injuries sustained during the assault three days previously.
Amnesty International said the increase in rape cases across the country was due to the failure of law enforcement.
"Although rape is a crime in Nigeria (the) government’s response to it continues to be woefully inadequate," it said in a statement.
"We are deeply concerned that perpetrators of rape in Nigeria invariably escape punishment."
The Guardian newspaper reported that Omozuwa visited the Redeem Christian Church of God in Benin state on May 27 and was in the church auditorium when a group of men attacked her, raped her and hit her on the head with a fire extinguisher cylinder before leaving her for dead.
Her sister Judith Omozuwa told broadcaster the BBC that Vera was taken to hospital after a security guard found her with her skirt torn and her shirt covered in blood.
Judith Omozuwa said her sister, who wanted to be a nurse, had only just been admitted to the university to study microbiology when she was killed.
Enoch Adeboye, the general overseer of the church where Omozuwa was attacked, posted on Twitter that the church was cooperating with the police to establish the facts of the incident.
Nigerian televangelist Johnson Suleman condemned the attack.
"Justice must be served ... she was just 22-years-old," he tweeted.
Popular Nigerian disc jockey DJINEE said parents had failed dismally in raising male children, instead concentrating too much on the conduct of female children.
The BBC quoted a police spokesperson in southern Edo state as saying the incident was being treated as a murder and not a rape case.
The spokesperson said Omozuwa died following a fight at the church, without giving more details.