A 60-year-old pastor, Chukwuemeka Orji, was remanded in a correctional centre on Tuesday by an Aba South Senior Magistrate’s Court over the alleged rape of a minor.
The Assemblies of God Church cleric is facing
one count of serially raping a 13-year-old girl who lived with him.
The rape survivor (name withheld) told the
court that the defendant had carnal knowledge of her on many occasions.
She said that after Orji’s third-time rape,
she told his wife, Mercy, who reportedly confronted him over the allegation.
The survivor claimed that the pastor denied
the allegation before his wife.
She said that Orji, however, continued to
rape her and threatened to send her back to her parents in the village in
Ugwunagbo should she expose him.
She said that the threat deterred her from
telling her parents, who worship in another branch of the church, about what
she was passing through.
She further said that on Thursday, June 15,
after Orji’s wife had gone to market, he asked her for sex, but she refused on
the ground that she was menstruating.
She said that after the June 15 act, she went
to school crying.
“It was while I was crying that my school
proprietor inquired as to why I was crying and I told him the truth.
She said that it was at that point that the
police were invited into the matter.
Orji pleaded not guilty after the charge was
read to him, according to a News Agency of Nigeria report.
After presenting his own version of the
story, the Magistrate, Mrs. Jane Young-Daniel, called Orji’s wife on her
cellphone, asking if she was aware of the allegation against her husband.
It was learnt that Mercy initially denied
being aware of the allegation but later admitted that she heard it and
confronted her husband, who she said denied the allegation.
The police prosecutor, Mrs. Mary Udoji, urged
the court not to admit the defendant on bail in order to prevent him from
further molesting the girl.
Young-Daniel ordered that the girl be
returned to her parents immediately after she was told that she had since been
in the custody of the police.
She also ordered that Orji be remanded at the
Aba Correctional Centre.
She adjourned the matter to the 6 and 18 of
July for a hearing.
She said that Orji, however, forced her to
suck his manhood, an act she described as nauseating to her.
She said that because she could not satisfy
him, he ordered her to cut the overgrown grass in their compound “as a
punishment”.
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