Like hail, curses have been raining
on Samuel Uba, a 65-year-old man in Kalabari Beach, Oguta Local Government
Area, Imo State, who is alleged to have committed an abominable act by
repeatedly raping his 17-year-old daughter, Hannah Uba and impregnating her in
the process. The poor teenager is now saddled with a five-month-old pregnancy.
It was the timely intervention of the
police that prevented irate youths in the community from lynching him when they
got wind of the abominable act after the violated and traumatized teenager
finally summoned the courage to report the matter to a neighbour, who in turn
informed the leader of the youths.
Recounting the horrific experience
she passed through, Hannah, a JSS 3 student of St. Michael Secondary School
Obodo Oguta said: “I have been living in bondage. My father started having sex
with me after his two wives died. He would always beat me before having sex
with me. I told him to remarry but he refused. Every night he would come and
rape me. Any day I refused to have sex with my father, he would beat me and
then rape me. He always came when the other children were asleep. It was the
fear of my father’s beating that made me not to tell anybody. But one day, I
decided to confess to my neighbour. It was the neighbour who discovered that I
was five months pregnant. Immediately the news spread, youths in the community
gathered to kill my father, but policemen rescued him.”
Pastor Donatus Olisa, General
Overseer of Christian Pentecostal Church, where the suspect and his daughter
worship said he learnt about Hannah’s predicament from other members of the
church.
Shocked to the marrow, Pastor Olisa
told Sunday Sun: “The father of the girl, Samuel and his daughter attend my
church every Sunday. Some people told me that Papa Samuel was sleeping with his
daughter; they said the pregnancy that resulted from it had reached five
months. I was deeply shocked. The following morning I went to the house of Papa
Samuel and he confessed that he impregnated the daughter. He acknowledged
raping her often.”
Hannah’s trouble started in 2012
after her father’s second wife died. As the old man, who hails from Ibiasoegbe
in Oru West Local Government Area of Imo State, told Sunday Sun in an
interview, he used to have sex with his second wife even when she was sick and
on admission at the hospital.
He said: “I had two wives. My first
wife died in 2011 while the second died in 2012. I have nine children, two
girls and seven boys. When my second wife was on admission in the hospital, I
used to have sex with her right in the hospital. But when she died I started
sleeping with my daughter when the other children were asleep. I began having
sex with my daughter because I didn’t want to be sleeping around with other
women.”
Ever since the story broke, Imo State
Commissioner of Police, Mr Abdulmajid Ali disclosed that the Command has made
tireless efforts to conduct proper investigation into the case, which he
described as an abomination. He further disclosed that youths in the area were
so incensed that they wanted to lynch the alleged culprit, but noted that the
quick intervention of the Divisional Police Officer in-charge of Oguta Police
Division, Supol Ikembuchukwu Abugu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police and his
men saved the day and rescued the suspect from the hands of the youths. Samuel
was immediately taken into custody on April 30, 2014, pending the conclusion of
investigations.
Although Samuel has appealed to his
community for forgiveness, blaming the devil for the abominable act, the Imo
State Police Commissioner, however, assured that he would be charged to court
to answer appropriate charges for rape and impregnating a legal minor.
Source: Sun