The alleged rape of 50-year-old widow Chinyere Igwe by 29-year-old Chikodili Igboji has resulted in an arrest order from a Chief Magistrate Court in Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi State.
Igboji was taken into custody at the Abakaliki Correctional Prison after being accused of one count of sexual assault.
He was allegedly the one who carried out the atrocity on October 5, 2023, at Udenyi village, Izzo Imoha, in the State’s Ezza North local government area.
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Magistrate Chinedu Agama, the trial magistrate, dismissed the defendant’s request for bail during the trial and subsequently ordered his custody.
In court, Igboji was read the charge and entered a not guilty plea. Francis Nwelom, the defendant’s attorney, contended that his client was innocent of the crime, but Insp. Stanley Ngene, the prosecutor, objected to the bail request and requested that the prisoner be placed under arrest.
Ngene told the court that the 2009 Ebonyi State of Nigeria’s CAP 33 vol. 1 statutes, criminal code, has a section 358 that punishes the offence.
The victim, a mother of six, told journalists shortly after the court session that the defendant had brought a knife to her house at night.
He came into my room at night, snatched me out of slumber, and threatened to kill me if I told him anything.
I started to shiver out of fear. I was able to ask him what I had done wrong. I begged him to take pity on me, explaining that I am a single mother of six children.
He raped me after pushing me to the ground. She continued, “He didn’t stop there; he went on to take my phone and my hard-earned N20,000.”
