Written By Hembadoon Orsar

After four years, a Makurdi High Court in Benue State, has acquitted Andrew Ogbuja, a lecturer at the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, over the rape and death of Ochanya Ogbanje, a 13-year-old teenager in 2018.

On the same day, a Federal High Court in Makurdi, in a separate case slammed 5 months conviction on Felicia Ochiga-Ogbuja, for negligence in the rape of the deceased teenager who was staying with them.

Ogbuja and his fugitive son, Victor, who are both maternal relations of the deceased, were accused of serially raping her until she fell ill and subsequently died.

Ochanya was admitted at the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi for two months before she died on October 17, 2018.

As the police manhunt for Victor was yet to yield any result, the Benue State government, in October 10, 2019, arraigned the 54-year-old Ogbuja before the Makurdi High Court for rape and death of miss  Ogbanje among others.

Delivering judgement the judge, Augustine Ityonyiman, of the Benue State High Court in Makurdi, held that the prosecution failed to prove its charges against Mr Ogbuja.

However, in Mrs Ogbuja’s case which coincided with that of her husband, the judge, Mobolaji Olajunwo, held that the defendant failed in her duty to protect Miss Ogbanje from “being sexually abused by her son, Victor.”

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) had charged Mrs Ogbuja with negligence leading to the rape and death of Ochanya.

The agency accused Mrs Ogbuja of failing in her duty to protect the deceased teenager from “being raped” by her husband and son, Victor.

In her verdict, Judge Olajunwo held that “Ochanya was being abused by the son of the defendant, but the “defendant who owed” the deceased girl “the duty of care to ensure that she was protected from such act,” failed in doing so even when Mrs Ogbuja’s daughter, Winifred drew her attention to the sexual assault.