Like Father! Like Son!! Senior Lecturer and Son rape 13-year-old Wife's Niece
Mr. Ogbuja’s teenage son, Victor, was also alleged to have been part of the sexual molestation of the victim, but is now at large.
Andrew Ogbuja, who was arraigned before a Makurdi Upper Area Court on Monday, was arrested last Friday after the victim’s family raised the alarm. When the case came up, the accused pleaded with the judge to temper justice with mercy, asking to be granted bail so he can go back home to have the matter resolved amicably, considering his status, especially as he was caught in the act. The accused, who spoke through his counsel, David Ojile, equally promised to take full responsibility for the treatment of the victim, saying it was a family matter. His plea was, however, rejected by the trial judge, Mr. Sam Kwen, who ordered the lecturer remanded at Makurdi Federal Prisons.
Earlier the Police prosecutor, Inspector Patrick
Sunday, told the court that on August 8, at about 12 noon, the International
Federation of Women Lawyers, Benue State chapter, in company of one Rose Abah
of Ogene Amadu Edumoga, Okpokwu Local Government Area of the state, reported
the matter at the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, CIID, of
the state police command. According to the prosecutor, “from the First
Information Report, FIR, before the court, Mrs. Abah claimed that sometime in
February, when her 13-year-old daughter was sick and admitted at Federal
Medical Centre, Makurdi, she told her that when she was staying with her
cousin-sister, Felicia Ogbuja in Ugbokolo town between 2013 and 2015, her son,
Victor Ogbuja, raped her. “She further said that her cousin’s husband, Andrew
Ogbuja, also had canal knowledge of her.” He said during police investigation,
the said Andrew Ogbuja was arrested, while the said Victor Ogbuja was at large,
noting that “the offence is punishable under Sections 97 and 284 of the Penal
Code of Benue State 2004.”
However, no plea was taken because the court lacked
the jurisdiction to hear the case, while the judge, Mr. Kwen, adjourned the
case to September 24.
Narrating her ordeal, the victim, a JSS 1 student
of Federal Government College, Gboko, said her guardian’s son first raped her
in 2013 and warned her never to disclose it to anyone. Her story: “It all
started in 2013 when I came to live with my mother’s sister in Ugbokolo because
there was no school in my village. “When I was eight years old, the son started
sleeping with me and when his sister caught him, she reported him to their
father and the father scolded him. “From there, the father also started
sleeping with me and I told my mother. My mother told my elder sister, who
later took me to Makurdi for check up. Last year September, when I went to
school and started feeling sick, I was taken to Federal Medical Centre,
Makurdi, where I spent two months and five days before I was discharged. “In
the hospital, they discovered that what my aunty’ son and his father did to me
was responsible for my condition. My mother went to confront my aunty and the
husband, but they did not take the matter serious, that is why we brought the
case here.
Vanguard
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