The Rivers State Police Command yesterday said they had unravelled the widely-reported gang-r*pe case which allegedly took place at the Abia State University, ABSU, Uturu.
Police reports put the incident at Obite town in Etche Council Area of Rivers State. The victim was also found to be married while the suspects are her husband’s cousins.
Police sources say the investigation was prompted by a social media record of an incident where four men allegedly molested a girl at ABSU.
Police say three of the suspects have been charged to Magistrate Court 9, Port Harcourt.
According to the report published in the Nigeria Police newspaper, ‘The Dawn’, of March 11-24, 2013 edition, detectives from the Rivers State Criminal Investigation Department, working on intelligence report on September 7, 2012, traced the husband of the victim code-named Mr. S from Obite town in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The report said further that Mr. S confirmed the victim as his wife and that the perpetrators of the act were from his community.
“After painstakingly tracing the identity of the suspects, it led to their arrest. They are Uchenna Ukulor, Chizoba Nwosu and Nwazuo Nmezi, while the fourth person is on the run,” the report said.
In the report, the police were quoted as saying that the suspects and the husband of the victim were invited and the video clip was played for them which clearly established that three of them with another at large committed the crime.
The report further said further that the suspects are cousins to the husband of the victim.
Following the report, the Abia State Government, which put up spirited denial of the incident when it was linked to its university, reacted happily to the report, saying it has been vindicated.
In a statement through the Chief Press Secretary to Abia State Governor Theodore Orji, Mr. Ugochukwu Emezue, the government said enemies of the state were behind the castigation of the state after watching the rape case on the social media, and commended the police for doing a thorough work to unravel where the incident actually took place and arresting some of the suspects.
Emezue also lashed at some members of the National Assembly “who never investigated the matter and jumped into conclusion.”
