Old students of Federal Government Girls College, Gboko have demanded a father and son be arrested for homicide and charged with first-degree murder for sexually abusing a relative for six years until she died at age 13.
The father, Andrew Ogbuja, a staff at Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, and his son, Victor Inalegwu Ogbuja, a final-year student at the Federal University of Agriculture are said to have serially abused the 13-year-old Ochanya Ochiga—through series of anal and vaginal rape—since she joined their household at age eight.
Her actual guardian is named as her aunt Felicia Ochiga-Ogbuja, wife to Andrew and mother to Victor.
Examinations have shown Ochiga, a student of FGGC, Gboko, developed vesico-vaginal fistula, a condition in which she continuously dripped urine, following damage to her bladder.
She died on Sunday at Benue State University Teaching Hospital in Makurdi, and an autopsy has revealed several health complications.
FGGC Old Students Association called her death an outrage.
“As a body, we demand that the perpetrators be called to justice and severely punished. Messrs Andrew Ogbuja and Victor Inalegwu Ogbuja should be arrested for homicide and charged with first degree murder. They should be made to feel the full wrath of Lady Justice. They should bear the brunt of the Law in quantum measures,” the association said in a statement.
“It was not enough for them to hurt young Ochanya from age 8; they had to repeat the barbaric sessions within a 6-year period. We can only describe such tendencies as animalistic, with special apologies to animals. As such, they deserve no mercy.”
Regarding the girl’s aunt, the old students said, “We are ashamed that a woman was within the perimeter of this series and yet remained silent or unmoved.”
The association has planned protest marches from Tuesday, and is seeking personal legal representation and the involvement of the International Federation of Women Lawyers as well as civil society organisations working in women’s issues to push for justice for the 13-year-old, the association’s national secretary, Allison Onjeh, told Daily Trust.
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