- 6 youngsters take turns to rape Abia widow
- We wanted her to surrender money she stole – Suspects
From: OKEY SAMPSON
WHEN German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said Man is the cruelest animal, he seemed to have in mind that one day, some six young men in, Abia State will tie a widow to the stakes and take turns to rape her.
This was exactly what happened recently in a rustic and sleepy community, called Abia in God’s own state. The community, which shares common boundary with Ankpa in Cross River State is in Ohafia, Ohafia Local Government of Abia State. Like Abia State which is popularly known as ‘God’s Own’ State, Abia community is equally referred to as ‘God’s Own’ community because it has enjoyed uninterrupted peace over time.
However, the community’s sobriquet of ‘God’s Own’ was on June 7 put to question when a group of six young men acted a bad script allegedly written by a woman from the area which was seen as a taboo.
At the beginning
Esther Amogu, 40, became a widow at the age of 32, after her husband, Obasi Amogu died in 2007, leaving six children for only Esther to take care.
Faced with the dilemma of the death of her husband and bringing her six young children up all alone, the young widow relocated to her maternal home in Abia village courtesy of her maternal uncle, Johnson Owo Awa.
Being a young and strong lady, Esther combined petty trading with subsistence farming to fend for her young family. Her business takes her to neighbouring states of Enugu and Cross River.
On June 7, however, Esther did not go the market; she rather went to the forest to gather the Uziza leaves she normally take to Enugu to sell. When she returned around 6pm that day, she met what she never expected. One of her maternal aunts by name Felicia Awa came to inform her (Esther) that her (Felicia’s) money she kept in her house was missing. The widow of six children after sympathising with her aunt urged her to look for a way of finding her money and thereafter entered her room to have a little rest. Like an overflown dam waiting to burst, Felicia had anchored a shipload of trouble for Esther waiting for the appropriate time to explode.
According to Esther, “I came back from where we call Melina forest around 6pm on Monday, June 7, 2016. Immediately afterwards, one of my maternal aunts, Felicia Awa, my mother’s half sister told me that her money was missing. I had not entered my house when she came to complain to me. After sympathising with her, I advised her to go all out and see how she would find her said missing money. I could not say much about her alleged missing money since I was not at home; in fact they were at home before I came back.”
Widow’s ordeal
Trouble began for Esther about 11pm same day, after preparing the Uziza leaves she was to take to the market in Enugu State. According to her, she took the prepared leaves to the house of a young man, a commercial motorcycle operator who takes her to the market, named Luke Okoro who also doubles as her boyfriend. The idea of going to Okoro’s house that night was for them to leave very early the following morning for the market as they had done previously.
But hardly had she gone to the young man’s house than the six young men came and abducted her for an all night hellish encounter. Recalling what transpired that night, the widow said, “Immediately I went to Luke’s house that night, six young men led by one Sunny Okezie and a brother to Felicia, my accuser, stormed the house and asked me to bring out the money I stole from Felicia. I told them that what they were asking me was strange to me, that I did not see any money, not to talk of touching it.
“Immediately I told them I had no idea about the money, the six young men held me, and tied my hands and legs with rope in backward position. I was in excruciating pains and started shouting for help but no help came my way as they had earlier tied up Luke and threatened to kill him if he dared intervene or raise any alarm. As I was shouting for help, Felicia came and urged the boys she hired to torture me very well and collect all the money I had.
“I told the boys that I never stole Felicia’s money, that the money on me which I wanted to use to buy things in the market the following morning which was around N50,000 was borrowed at a meeting and the people I borrowed the money from were still alive that they could go verify. All my denials and pleas for them to loosen the ropes they tied round my hands and legs fell on deaf ears. Instead, they said that since I refused to bring the money that they were going to deal with me. They used a piece of cloth and tied my mouth so that I was unable to shout again, but was only shedding tears due to the pains I was passing through. They tied me around 11pm and only untied me around 5am the following day”.
Extreme torture and rape
Apart from being tied with rope like a mad and stubborn cow for six excruciating hours that night, the widow was severely beaten with planks and big sticks. At a point, Esther said the six young men tried to behead her but God was on her side as the machete they used appeared not sharp enough to go through her throat but it nevertheless left some indelible marks around her neck. “I was tortured to the point they wanted to behead me, but it was like the machete they had was not sharp enough as it only left some scars round my neck.”
Esther’s traducers never let her off the hook after they tortured her as she claimed they went to her bag and collected the N50, 000 she planned to take to market the following day. “After torturing me, including beating me with fire wood for a long time and as nobody came to my rescue, they opened the bag I had arranged the goods I was to take to the market and collected N50, 000 which was part of the money I borrowed at a meeting”.
If the widow’s ordeal had ended with what was meted out to her so far, she may not have bothered much and would not have raised the alarm. The youngsters thereafter took Esther in the early hours of the following day to the village’s primary school where the six youngmen in turn raped her.
Her words “It did not end there, they said since I did not want to befriend any of them after my husband’s death that they will deal with me. They carried me to the nearby primary school and one of them, a relation of my maternal uncle by name Okorie held my legs, by then I was already weak and tied them to pillars and then the young men raped me viciously. Okorie Solomon was the first, followed by Kalu Ekpo a.k.a Fuji, Kalu a.k.a Koffi, Okorie, Ibom and Dauda, the biggest of them all.”
After dealing with Esther cruelly the way they did, the young men never allowed her home until 5am when her maternal uncle who was woken up by a neighbour to the fact that the youngmen were still subjecting the lady to inhuman treatment, intervened.
More trouble
The respite Esther received following her maternal uncle Awa’s intervention was momentary as more trouble was to come. As her uncle who is barely hanging on to life could not do much over the incident, the widow went round the village crying and calling on the villagers to come to her aid and ensure that justice was done since according to her she had nobody to help her. She told them if her husband had been alive, the men would not have done that to her. This worked out. Her cries elicited response from the villagers particularly from the women folk who took the customary weeded grasses and deposited them at the doorsteps of those who manhandled and raped the widow.
“That on it’s own would have cost me my life as one of the youngmen who manhandled me the previous night rushed to my house to hack me to death but I was fast enough to close the door of my house against him and the machete which was already aimed at me. The following day, he came back and threatened to kill me for daring to report them to the villagers. One of his brothers who came with him said they were going to deal with me. He threatened that they would be killing my children one after another until I will have no child”, she stated.
Narrating her ordeal further, Esther said she never knew that before coming after her, the youngmen who she alleged her accuser, Felicia bought three bottles of schnapps and a roll of Indian hemp and given an undisclosed amount of money to ensure they deal with her, had already whisked away her 13 year old girl, Onyinyechi from the place she was roasting corn, to their hide-out where they stay to smoke Indian hemp. She claimed that the hoodlums collected all the money her daughter made that night, tortured her by designing her body including her private part with cigarette light. “If she pulls off her dress, you will pity her. They made her naked and flogged her mercilessly, accusing her also of stealing Felicia’s money”, she said amid sobs.
Police steps in
Pained by the maltreatment meted out to the widow and her daughter Onyinyechi and the persistent threat to life by the perpetrators, a relation gave Esther who then had no money even to treat herself in the hospital, some money to report the matter to the police. “With what they did to me and the persistent threat to life that followed, one of my maternal relations, gave me money to report the matter to the police. It was when police came into the matter that the villagers came in and started begging that I should withdraw the case for settlement at home. I told them that the only condition that will make me withdraw the matter was if they were prepared to give back the money they collected from me because right now, I am no longer doing any business and I find it difficult to feed my children. Again that they should give me money to go to the hospital and treat myself because I’m still not feeling fine as a result of what I went through in their hands”.
All the agreement reached by the villagers to settle the matter failed as all the suspects absconded from the community and for Esther; the law must take its course. Felicia, named as the mastermind has since after the incident also fled the community.
“My intention was to forgive them and leave everything in the hands of God because after the incident, I ran into a church, knelt down, raised my hands and asked God to forgive them because they did not know what they did. But it was when this threat to life started coming from them again and they refused to return my money that I said no, there was a limit to which I can bear this because their thinking is that as a widow even if they kill me, nobody will query them”, she stated.
To Esther, the police appear to be show over the matter as according to her, after the incident was reported to them, nothing substantial had been done.
This was however denied by the Abia State police command public relations officer (PPRO), Ogbonnaya Nta who said one of the perpetrators of the act had been arrested. He equally told Saturday Sun that efforts were being made to arrest the other five suspects and the woman who contracted them, saying after investigations, they would be charged to court.