A state High Court sitting in Makurdi, Benue State has acquitted a lecturer at the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, Andrew Ogbuja, of the charges of rape and causing the death of a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Ochanya Ogbanje, in 2018.
Mr Ogbuja and his son Victor, who are both maternal relations of Ochanya, were accused of raping her until she fell ill and died. Victor has been at large since the state filed charges.
Ruling on Thursday, Justice Augustine Ityonyiman held that the prosecution failed to prove its four counts against Ogbuja.
Justice Ityonyiman held that police investigators failed to subject the defendant to medical examination in order to match his specimen with the findings in the medical reports presented before the court.
In evaluating the evidence, the judge held that two autopsy reports from the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi and the Nigeria Police Forensic Laboratory in Lagos, left him in quandary.
Meanwhile, in a separate case at the Federal High Court in Makurdi, the court convicted the lecturer’s wife, Felicia Ochiga-Ogbuja, for negligence in the rape of the deceased teenager.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons instituted the case.
Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon 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 an act,’ failed in doing so even when Mrs Ogbuja’s daughter, Winifred, drew (her attention ) to the sexual assault.”
