... Another for raping three minors

A 25 - year old man, Tochukwu Abugu, has been arrested for allegedly masterminding an organised raping of a lady from a neighbouring village, whom he accused of rejecting his love proposals. 

The suspected gang leader has already been transferred to the police for further investigation.

In another development, the Neighbourhood Watch, also, arrested one Sunday Eze, from Amufie area of the Igboeze North Local Government for allegedly raping three minors.

Eze allegedly confessed that he lured out his victims mainly, aged between three and seven years, each time there were occasions which they attend with their mothers, to obscure places where they were defiled. 

The suspected, who is from Ukwuagbudu Village, Ugbaike in Enugu State, was alleged to have set up the lady, name withheld, by asking her to pick up a new phone which he purportedly bought for her, only for the lady to be gang- raped by four other boys already arranged for the devilish act.

According to sources, those who gang-raped the lady included Obinna Eze; Okeudili (both from Ukwuahbudu Ugbaike) as well as Nnabuike Ogbonna and Sunday Onyeke (both also from Akamangbo in the same village.

The rapists also videoed their actions which they later made viral after about one year after their criminal action, when their victim had got married to a man, whom she did not even inform about her rape experience.

However, soon after the rape video got viral, the Commander of the Central Neighbourhood Watch in Igbo Eze North, Anselem Odo, ASP, rtd,  mobilised his men and swung into action, and arrested Tochukwu, who is a tricycle driver in Onitsha.

Some of the neighbourhood watch operatives who watched the video said that the suspects brutalised and raped her in turns just as they not only brutalised but brandished their pistols and they asked her to stay in various sex positions while stark naked. 

Tochukwu reportedly told security operatives who interrogated him that he organised the gang - rape of the lady because she refused his love advances after he had spent so much on her.

However, the lady in her own statement said she had never she met Tochukwu only once when she traveled to Onitsha in search of job.

Her words, "I traveled to Onitsha with my friend and room mate, who is like my sister. We went because, my friends sister said she found a job for us. 

"When, we went to Onitsha, the girl said the place she found for us was to work in a hotel, but I refused to work in the hotel. I told her that I did not want to work in a place where people would call me a prostitute.

"So, we told our host that we wanted to go back but at that time our transport fee was incomplete. Our host then used my phone to call Tochukwu, who is a keke driver at Okpoko and asked him to help us complete the transport fare and he agreed. 

"We met him at a junction at Okpoko and he gave my friend N2000 with which we came back. I later got a job at Nsukka.

"However, because our friend used my telephone to call him, he used the number to call me several times. One day, he called me and complained that I was not taking his calls, and I told him that my phone was bad. He then promised to send a new phone to me through his friend who would be coming home soon.

"'Later, he called to inform me that he had sent the phone who is from a neighbouring village in Ugbaike. It was when I went to Ugbaike to collect the so- called phone that the four men who tore my clothes, brutalised and gang raped me."   

Meanwhile, the Neighbourhood Watch members have spread their dragnets to arrest the remaining rapists with a view to handing them over to the police for trial.

In another development, the neighbourhood watch members have also arrested one Sunday Eze, 25, over alleged serial defilement of children.

Eze was said to have specialised in luring the kids out of social gatherings while their mothers were busy to defile them.

"My name is Sunday Eze and I am 25 years. I am from Igbada in Amufie. I defiled Munachimso, 5yrs, from Umuopu Eke, Amufie.

"So far, I have defiled three under-aged girls and I lure them out of social gatherings while their mothers are busy attending to other issues.

"If there is an occasion, I use biscuits or sweets to lure them out to a hideout where I defile them without anybody knowing," the suspect who had since been handed over to the police, told his interrogators.