A 42-year old driver with the Imo State Transport Company (ITC), Mr. Okorie Agwu, has told a family Court in Owerri how he deceived, defiled, assaulted and impregnated an eleven year-old girl, using N100 note as a bait.
The girl (names withheld) was a junior secondary school (JSS 1) student in 2017 when the driver lured her with N100 note and repeatedly raped her in the bushes and uncompleted buildings in Owerri, the Imo State capital.
Agwu, who was remanded in the Owerri Correctional Centre by the family Court in Owerri, confessed that he had only at two different occasions lured the girl, who is now 13 years old, with one hundred naira note into his vehicle; drove her to a secluded area, including the desolate Akachi Tower axis on Owerri-Aba Road to molest her.
This, he said, continued until it resulted to a six-month pregnancy in 2019.
The Nation learned that the suspect, Agwu, is a father of five children, separated from his wife and hails from Arochukwu, Abia State.
The thirteen year-old pregnant victim had told the police that the suspect, Agwu, made her offer of one hundred naira and promised to buy her a cell-phone, if she became his friend.
This according to her, started some time in 2017, when she was in JSS 1 and continued every other day whenever she was returning from school.
She noted that even at that, she declined his offer.
She told the police that the day she decided to respect and answer the man, was the day he drove him into a bush, tore her cloths and raped her, and she went home bleeding.
The victim lives with her grand father and step mother.
The step mother is threatening to send the 13-year old girl out of the house, on the ground that she cannot handle her ante-natal and post-natal care.
However, a Non-Governmental Organization, Virgin Heart Foundation and Nigeria Association of Women Journalists(NAWOJ) Imo State Chapter, through the vice Chairman, Dorothy Nnaji have pledged psycho-social support, medical assistance and legal support for the victim.
The convener of Virgin Heart Foundation, Peace Dike charged the security agencies and the judiciary to be more proactive in the fight against sexual violence against women and girls.
Leave a Reply