PROFESSOR IN POLICE NET FOR ALLEGED DEFILEMENT OF 12YR OLD GIRL IN EBONYI
REPORTER: AMECHI ODO
Police have arrested a lecturer said to be a Professor of Geophysics in a Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike in Ebonyi State, Felix Anyaegbunam, for alleged defilement of his twelve year old house help in his apartment at Democracy Estate Abakaliki.
The Police Public Relations Officer in Ebonyi State, Mrs. Loveth Odah, told Radio Nigeria that the suspect was arrested following a complaint by Gender Based Violence Taskforce.
The twelve year old girl, who is in primary five, told Radio Nigeria that she had been living with Professor Felix Anyaegbunam for the past two years while he repeatedly raped her from June this year.
She said she was brought in to nurse a child the suspect allegedly fathered through a similar sexual abuse involving her aunt during her time as a house help in his apartment in 2017.
The minor explained that she reported her defilement to her father, who was a gateman at the lecturer’s apartment but he told her to endure the abuse as he could not afford to train her in school if he pulls her out from the suspected rapist’s apartment.
Frustrated by the inaction of the father, the victim informed her Head Teacher who reported the allegation to Human Right Defenders (HURIDE) before the lecturer was picked up by the Police.
“That night after my school, aunty told him that i have started menstruating, he started coming to my bed to be doing with me what i don’t like, i told my father who told me to endure, then I told my school aunty that he was sleeping with me,” the poor girl narrated.
The Coordinator of the Human Right Group, Comrade Samson Oko, described the sexual abuse of the minor as horrible, emphasising that everything would be done to ensure that the suspect was prosecuted.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mrs. Odah, explained that the suspect was being detained at the Central Police Station (CPS) Abakaliki while a discreet investigation had commenced to ascertain the veracity of the allegation by the twelve year old girl.
Radio Nigeria gathered that the father of the girl was also picked up by the police for questioning following allegation of inaction and silence levelled against him by her daughter.