By JOHNKENNEDY UZOMA

The officers of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Imo State Command have arrested a 40-year-old Mr Reuben Chibueze for allegedly violating his 16-year-old stepdaughter.

The NSCDC Commandant in Imo, Mr Michael Ogar, disclosed this in Owerri, on Saturday, while parading Chibueze and two others who allegedly committed related crimes.

Ogar said that the other two suspects, Amarachi Emmanuel and Chinenye Ejimonye were also arrested for alleged child trafficking and child battering respectively.

He said that the suspects, who were arrested based on intelligence, were being investigated and would soon be handed over to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for onward prosecution.

He said: “We gathered that Mr Chibueze battered his wife severally and sent her away from the house on a fateful evening before proceeding to have carnal knowledge of his stepdaughter, after threatening to stab her if she refused him access to her body.”

Tribune Online gathered that Emmanuel collected a large sum of money as payment for trafficking a child while Ejimonye battered her housemaid to the extent that the latter jumped down a storey building out of fear and broke her limb.

He said: “Our child trafficking unit has done a good job and we will soon hand the suspects over to NAPTIP”.

He called on silent victims of abuse and maltreatment to report to the NSCDC and advised the general public to desist from the act adding that the law would surely catch up with offenders.

Speaking, Mrs Chioma Chibueze, the mother of the rape victim, described her husband as a “serial abuser” and said that he had attempted to rape her daughter two years ago, but promised to desist from the act after a failed attempt.

Also, 14-year-old Miss Blessing Opara, the alleged victim of physical abuse said that she was an orphan who had been denied access to basic education since moving in to stay with Ejimonye, one year ago.

She prayed to God to heal her leg and save her from the deformity. (Saturday Tribune)

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