AfriPulse
…security turned carjacking to defilement case –ACVPN
Rape allegation
A father of four, Mr. Innocent Uchenna, has recalled in great details how police at the State Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (SCIID), Section D10, Lagos State Police Command, traumatised, harassed and accused him of defiling his 44-year-old wife, Jennifer Uchenna. I have evidence Innocent, 47, said that he was shocked because what initially took him to the police was a complaint against his wife, who disappeared with his youngest child and a Toyota Camry car. He explained that he and his wife had been having marital issues after he stopped having sex with her for a year and half. According to him, he took the decision to stop exercising conjugal rights after he found out that she was having a series of affairs, which their eldest child, who is 20 years old, confirmed to him. Innocent also claimed to have pictorial evidence of his wife’s chats with other men. He further alleged that his wife used to leave home for as long as four days without telling him where she was going, “Sometimes she would return with different cars, which I didn’t buy for her.”
However, Jennifer would later drag her husband to Advocates for Children and Vulnerable Persons Network (ACVPN), alleging neglect and domestic violence. Innocent said: “She reported me to Advocates, alleging domestic violence and that I was not taking care of the children. She told too many lies. Our youngest child is 10, while the oldest is 20 years old. She claimed that I used to beat her and refused to carry out my responsibilities as a father and husband. “When she wanted to start her restaurant business, I supported her financially and whenever she asked for money for housekeep, I give her. Our case was later transferred to Ministry of Women Affairs.
We were given 25 days to work on our marriage. After those days elapsed, we returned to the ministry, and we were given additional weeks to work on our marriage. We were still working on it when she disappeared with my Toyota Camry, 2007 Model and our youngest child.” Innocent went to the ministry to tell of the latest development and Jennifer was invited. The ministry said it could not resolve the matter and referred the couple to Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA). “I returned to the Advocates and then petitioned the SCIID. I had to write the petition after Jennifer deactivated the tracker on the car and caused her phone to remain unavailable. I also discovered during that period that one of her lovers’ named Promise was calling my children, telling them that he would take care of them. My children told me that he used to take them and their mom out,” said Innocent. Innocent was invited to the SCIID, and his Investigating Police Officer (IPO) was one Inspector Ajanaku. He recollects: “I was asked to write a statement which I did and then I was asked to pay N50,000 for mobilisation fee, which I paid through a POS operator that Ajanaku directed me to. In fact, he followed me to the POS, where I collected cash and gave to him. I was asked to go, that they would get back to me.” He would be later invited, told that his wife was also invited, but they all waited in vain. Jennifer did not come. He was given another appointment and this time around Jennifer came with a lawyer, but they also came with a counter petition, alleging domestic violence.
Police Charged me for defilement Innocent said:
“In the petition it was claimed that the Ministry of Women Affairs were looking for me because I ran away. The Police now insisted I should write another statement concerning the allegation of domestic violence. After writing, Police again said that they were charging me for defilement, that I married Jennifer when she was 16 years of age. Police insisted that Jennifer’s elder sister, who brought her to Lagos should write a statement, and she wrote that Jennifer married me when she was 18 years. The truth however is that I married her when she was 21 years old and I was 25 years old. “One Ayo Yakubu, the second in command at D10 handed me over to Ajanaku again after my second petition. I was taken to the Officer in Charge of D10, CSP Margaret Ighodalo, who ordered that I should be detained for defilement. I was put in a cell on Wednesday, on Friday, someone came for my bail. We went to see Margaret, she said we should not disturb her, that I would go to jail, that someone was coming with birth certificate of my wife to show her age. I was shocked at her behaviour.” He said that on Monday, his lawyer came and he was brought out again and Ajanaku asked him to cough up N500,000 for bail. At that point, he had to call Ms. Blessing Aderemi, Programmes Manager of ACVPN. “We had to start negotiating and my lawyer told them that as at the time we got married, there was no Child Rights Law if they wanted to pursue the defilement allegation. I married Jennifer according to customary law and her family collected all their traditional rights. We bargained from N500,000 to N60,000.” Again, Innocent paid through the same POS Operator, but he was surprised when the money was returned to him by the police officer. He would later hear that the co-founder of ACVPN, Ebenezer Omejalile, when told of the demand for N500,000 bail money, had immediately reached out to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), in charge of the SCIID. The DCP had summoned D10 personnel to his office and ordered them to return Innocent’s money and grant him bail immediately. “After my release, they invited me again; it was Margaret that attended to us. She said my car has been impounded, that it will serve an exhibit and that her men should go to my house to snap pictures, that she would charge me for domestic violence. “They went to my house and snapped pictures of the kitchen, sitting room, bedroom, and frontal view of the house. The car has been with them now for seven months and that is since October. I really suffered in the hands of those police people and now I just want my car. I just bought the car and it’s in perfect condition, but right now, I don’t know its condition.”
Police reaction
Reacting to Innocent’s allegations against her Unit, Margaret explained that she deliberately impounded the car after she heard that Jennifer wanted to sell it. She stated that she did not want Jennifer to sell it even though the documents were with the lady. She added that she had been calling Innocent to come for it, but he had refused to pick his calls. Also speaking on Police alleged twisting of the case to defilement, she said it was Jennifer’s elder sister who told the Police that Innocent married Jennifer after he impregnated her. She added: “We told the woman to go and bring Jennifer’s birth certificate in order to prove defilement, but she couldn’t. I remember minuting on the case file that the defilement case was unfounded. I also minuted on the file that Innocent’s car should be released to him.” Innocent however insisted that Margaret never called him, stressing that if she had called, he would have picked because he did not commit any crime.
My husband should settle me
Jennifer also told her own side of the story. She said that it was Innocent who deflowered her, impregnated and then married her according to traditional rites. She further alleged that her husband has been beating her since he married her. She added: “My husband beats me, even while pregnant. When I was pregnant with my second child, he beat me and I fainted. I went to the hospital. “Anytime he beats me, he would tell me thank God, he never wooed me, thank God he had not gone to court to wed me, that his spirit did not accept the marriage. We kept going like that till we had four children, before this last time, there was a time he beat me, and I ran to the village. He came to the village pleaded and took us back to Lagos.” In 2013, the couple started a health product company together and had issues when Innocent’s sister who came to live with them. Jennifer said that Innocent slapped her in the presence of his sister, “to show that I didn’t have power over him, because his family believed I am controlling him.” According to her, she could manage their company on her own without supervision and did so when Innocent travelled to Indian. She narrated: “The problem I had with him was for him to make me a signatory to the account. To cut the whole story short, between 2014 and 2015, the company went down because of his stubbornness. “In 2016 we started life afresh with this same company, and we started looking for where to borrow money. I borrowed N2m in 2017 and gave my husband to ensure that the company started. In 2016, I met a friend that we were working together who is into real estate, the woman said because of the nature of her job she needed a Jeep vehicle. “We did a job, the woman gave me N2.5 million, which I gave to my husband to get a car for me. We sold that same car in 2017. He said that was the only thing we could sell to raise money to invest the money. We sold the car for N1.7. “I sent the money to him. After everything, I also gave him N2 million while the business was still going on.
That is about N6.5 million.” Jennifer said that as the company came afloat, Innocent said he could not work with her, that she should go and look for another job. She recounted that Innocent then brought in a nurse, whom she herself interviewed and they then employed to be working in the company. Innocent would later urge her to go for a skill acquisition and she went for baking. After acquiring the skill, “Innocent said he could not support me because money to open a bakery was much. I have his account details and money in his account was about N6m, but I asked for only N3.5m to start the bakery business.
So that was how it all started.” She also accused Innocent of infidelity with the nurse working in their company. She had allegedly discovered love text messages between Innocent and the nurse. She said: “I have evidence of his beatings.
I didn’t want to have problems with him. Even recently, I wanted peace, I know how many times I begged him to let us forget this issue, but he said no. “It’s because of all the money I invested in that company that made me to take his car. While we were still in court, he stopped the children from going to school. When I went to the welfare court, they judged it the way they wanted.”
ACVPN’s investigation
Omejalile, who had been following the matter, said that it was ACVPN that referred the couple to the Ministry of Women Affairs. He said: “ACVPN played a lot of roles in ensuring Mr. Innocent was not victimised and ensured he accessed the necessary services in the true course of justice. “It was Innocent’s wife that first contacted us and she was invited to our office so that we have a clear picture of what the situation was. “During interaction with Jennifer, we noticed some discrepancies in her summation when we had same interaction with Mr. Innocent.
“We referred both parties to the Domestic Unit of the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA), Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja to conduct further investigation and inquiry while we debriefed the ministry of our findings.
“We weren’t surprised when we heard Jennifer started exhibiting high level of irresponsibility, she became very apprehensive due to the fact she thought she could use us to oppress and illegally put Mr. Innocent in jail. “We equally drew the attention of the OC D10 Gender and Anti-Human Trafficking, SCIID Panti through the office of the former DCP, now CP, regarding the sudden disappearance of Innocent’s Toyota car and the abduction of their last child whom Jennifer took with her. “We got worried when we heard Jennifer was alleged to have been gallivanting with the vehicle with one of her numerous boyfriends according to her husband, Mr. Innocent.”
Source: NewTelegraphNG.com | Read More
