A 33-year-old man,
Nkemakonam Nwoke is in trouble because he molested female minors. Nwoke who
lived at 7, Chief Nwatu Street Emene, Enugu is said to have defiled eight
female kids of ages ranging between 3 and 6 years at his neighborhood.
Nkem's molestation of the eight minors was unnoticed until
one of the girls who could no longer cope reported to her mother that the man
was doing 'bad-bad' things with them. With further probing , the said parent
was able to get the truth from her daughter who confessed that the man was
molesting eight of them one after the other. Consequently, parents of the
victims contacted Mediating for the Less Privileged and Women Development and
the man was arrested.
Narrating the story to our reporter in Enugu, Dr. (Mrs.) Betty
Agujiobi who runs the NGO recalled how she got involved in the matter. Said
she: "I received a distress call from Emene, so I rushed there and it was
a case of a 33 year-old man defiling minors in his area. One of the children
was no longer comfortable with his lewd tendencies and she had to report to her
mother and that was how the community knew.
The man had been defiling the children for over one year
." "When I got there I had to interview the man and he admitted doing
it . Asked why he molested the children he said he didn't know, that he takes
delight in having sexual relationship with children. He said he's shy and can't
talk to mature girls. "I probed further to find out if probably he used
his fingers or his manhood and he told me he didn't use his fingers but his
manhood. The oldest amongst his victims appeared to be very shy to say what the
young man had been doing with them.
Others told me what happened and they spoke in Igbo saying
Nkem na eme anyi ihe aruruala (Nkem does bad-bad things to us). I asked further
to find out the type of bad things he was doing to them and they explained what
he had been doing with them and I had no option than to contact the police. The
police came and arrested the man and he also told them the truth. He said he would
not deny it and that probably God wanted to expose him ."
Agujiobi said further "But the man called me and said
there was one thing he wanted to find out. He said he wanted to know how long
he would spend in prison if he's convicted . I told him it would be about 7 to
14 years and he said if the jail term is multiplied by the number of children
it will be too severe that he would prefer if it would run concurrently. I said
okay, that we would see what we can do but that he has to maintain his story."
The risk of HIV/AIDS Agujiobi said further "After they were tested for
HIV/AIDS and the results were negative I asked their parents to take them for
tests for other sexually transmitted infections and they went.
They all tested positive and were placed on drugs. Before
then, one of the parents told me that her three-year-old girl was experiencing
vaginal discharge which was abnormal and that she never knew why until this
thing came to light." "All eight children live in a cluster
settlement in the same vicinity at a low income settlement at Emene where
anyone who owned a television is seen as a lord. This young man entices these
children with his television which he tunes to the cartoon network. Parents
didn't know why these children ran to him anytime he was around ."
"Whenever he wanted to molest them he would send some to go and buy
biscuits and probably tell them the place to go which was normally a distance
from his home.
They complied and he molested them one after the other . He
told me that he would spray his towel and lay the children on the towel and do
whatever he wanted to do with them." "I wanted to know the background
of the young man who looked very healthy and bulky and I was told how he came
to live with a woman with his mother. He used to go around with his mother
washing plates for the woman who was an hotelier and who would also give them
food." "After a while, when he was of age the hotelier asked the
mother to let him stay with her and that was how he came to live with her.
The hotelier expressed shock that they lived under the same
roof and she never knew something like this was going on. When the man told me
"…this is not the first time", the woman was like, "shut up, are
you mad? Why should you have to tell her that this is not your first time; do
you want to die?" He said "no I want to stop it; if this is the way
God wants me to stop it, I will be happy." They asked him how he felt now
and he said he's ashamed and that he wished he would just die to avoid the
shame. A sense of guilt has overcome him and he never raised his face but was
always bowing to hide his face. He said "I am so ashamed; if the parents
of these children killed me I won't blame them because I really offended
them." "Poverty you know is a problem and initially parents of the
victims thought my organization's intervention would be like every other
intervention.
They never knew we meant business. At a point they delegated
two of the parents to meet me and they came to my house and said they were
happy with me for my commitment but that they wanted to withdraw from the case.
I asked them why and they said the man would settle them and that he has agreed
to settle each of them so that they would withdraw the case. The two parents
said they would gain nothing from going to court or sending the man to jail and
that the best thing was to settle out of court. I told them this is a case of
defilement and that this man had said that he didn't start with your children,
but had been doing it with other children.
If you withdraw this case who knows who would be the next
victim?. I said as far as I am concerned if they collect anything from the man
I will sue them for trading with their children. There and then I called a
lawyer. I told him I had a case and this is what the parents were trying to do.
I asked him to prepare a case against the parents so we could go to court and
he said okay that I should come. Nkem shouted and asked if that was how I
behaved. I said yes, that I will even go beyond that and he promised to go back
to the others assuring that they play along.
I asked him if he realized the kind of infection those
children must have contracted . It wasn't as though my NGO was doing it alone.
I contacted the vice president of FIDA Enugu State, and also Child Protection
Network and got all of them involved. I called the Director, Citizens Rights
and told her about the case and she offered some advice." Agujiobi
revealed that three of the victims are from the same parents.
The suspect who was arraigned at an Enugu East Chief Magistrate
Court was remanded in prison custody and the file transferred to the Director
of Public Prosecution. Agujiobi told our reporter that her NGO is still
expecting the case to come up. "We have not been invited but I still go to
see the children and I interact with their parents, she added.
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