The Benue State High Court in Makurdi, on Thursday, acquitted Andrew Ogbuja, a lecturer at the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, of raping and causing the death of Ochanya Ogbanje, a 13-year-old schoolgirl in 2018.
Yesterday been Thursday 28th April, 2022 OWACDO TEAM were in the High Court alongside other CSOs to witness the decision which contradicts what happened the other Thursday .The Federal High Court in Makurdi, in a separate case, which convicted Mr Ogbuja’s wife for negligence over the child, after establishing that he raped the minor.
The federal court jailed Felicia Ochiga-Ogbuja five months without an option of fine for failing to protect the child from her husband, but the state High Court, about the same time, on Thursday, exonerated the man.
Mr Ogbuja and his fugitive son, Victor, who are both maternal relations of the deceased, were accused of serially raping her until she fell ill and subsequently died.
Ochanya was admitted at the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi for two months before she died on October 17, 2018.
As the police manhunt for Victor had yet to yield any result, the Benue State government, on October 10, 2019, arraigned 54-year-old Mr Ogbuja before the Makurdi High Court on four counts of rape and Miss Ogbanje’s death.Delivering judgement on the case, on Wednesday, the judge, Augustine Ityonyiman, of the Benue State High Court in Makurdi, held that the prosecution failed to prove its four-count charge against Mr Ogbuja.
However, in Mrs Ogbuja’s case which coincided with that of her husband, on Thursday 28th April 2022, the judge, Mobolaji Olajuwon, of the Federal High Court in Makurdi, held that the defendant failed in her duty to protect Miss Ogbanje from “being sexually abused by her son, Victor.”
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP) had charged Mrs Ogbuja with negligence leading to the rape and death of Ochanya.
The anti-human trafficking agency accused Mrs Ogbuja of failing in her duty to protect the deceased teenager from “being raped” by her husband and son, Victor. In her verdict, Mrs Olajuwon held that “Ochanya was being abused by the son of the defendant, but the “defendant who owed” the deceased girl “the duty of care to ensure that she was protected from such an act,” failed in doing so even when Mrs Ogbuja’s daughter, Winifred, drew her attention to the sexual assault.
