An Internal Injury

Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State

The arraingement – and subsequent imprisonment – of two members of a kidnap syndicate in Imo State exposes the modus operandi of the criminals
By Eugenia Okpara, Owerri
How would you tell your secondary school daughter that some members of your family that she regards as relations have turned around to become her worst nightmare? Or, is it possible for a person to think that a harmless attendance to a party of primary school mates by somebody who is regarded by members of the victim’s family as a family friend would turn out to be a kidnap tool?
How would anyone take it when people you have known for over seven years, whom you have come to regard as relations, kidnap, rape and then tell all manner of lies against you? Is it possible that people you hire, so to say, to execute a job would turn around and rape you?
These are nagging posers in the sordid kidnap and rape saga of an 18-year-old girl now rocking Imo State. It revolves around the ordeal which a young law undergraduate of the University of Abuja, Ginikachi Udeagu, was compelled to go through when the younger brother of her secondary school “mother” at Federal Government Girls’ College, Owerri (FGGC), kidnapped her on June 19, 2008. Ginikachi's school “mother” when they were students in FGGC, Owerri is the elder sister of the kidnapper and daughter of Dr. Emeka Ukaegbu, a former lawmaker and Medical practitioner.
This secondary school “mother/daughter” relationship had united the two families, that is the families of Ebere Udeagu, a Water Engineer and Dr. Emeka Ukaegbu. It was this familiar relationship that made it possible for Ginikachi to accept an invitation to attend a party at All Season’s Hotel, New Owerri with Emeka Ukaegbu, Jnr.
But the relationship went sour when Emeka planned and executed the kidnap of Ginikachi, with the assistance of three other young men that he co-opted into the deal. They demanded N100 million as ransom which was negotiated down to five million Naira. When the lid was blown open and two of the kidnappers, Emeka and Ogechi Ekechukwu were arrested, and arraigned, they fabricated lies to blackmail the girl.
The accused persons told the court that Ginikachi arranged the kidnap so that she could extort money from her father, alleging that she wanted to rent a house in Abuja that will cost N2.5 million. But in one of the statements that Emeka made to the police, he accepted planning the kidnap of the girl.
Part of the statement of Emeka, the first accused, read: “On 16/6/2008, Ginikachi came down to my family house on her usual visits. On hearing that I was in my room, she came in; she told me she had a problem, that she needs cash. She said her Daddy is stingy and does not give her money as she wants. She said she needed money to get an apartment off-campus in Abuja, being a big girl as she is a popular girl in campus. I told her I had no money and cannot help her. She said she was not talking about pocket money, that she has a plan. That she wants to go to a hideout in pretence to deceive her parents and extort money from her Daddy”.
But in another statement to the police on July 3, 2008, Emeka said that he organised the kidnap with three other boys, namely Capon, Ogechi (the second accused), Boy or Aboy, whose real name he does not know. He revealed that under the pretext that they were attending a party, he went to her house, picked Ginikachi up and drove her to his father’s house where he had already planted his collaborators.
According to him, it was later that Ginikachi realised that it was a kidnap and she was kept for six days until her father paid the sum of five million Naira as ransom.
In his first statement dated July 3, 2008, he stated: “On the same Tuesday, Chief Ebere Udeagu paid the sum of five million Naira; the money was collected by me and Ogechi, while Capon was in the house guarding Ginikachi.”
In another statement made on July 4, 2008, Emeka said that it was Aboy that raped Ginikachi, and that upon the complaint of Ginikachi, Aboy later admitted that he raped her.
But an Owerri High Court presided over by Justice Nonye Okoronkwo was told a different story when the victim, Ginikachi Udeagu, testified. According to the evidence of the victim in court (PW4), the younger brother, Emeka Jnr, of her secondary school 'mother' in Federal Government Girls College, Owerri, had invited her to a party at All Season’s Hotel, Owerri which she accepted. She said that she did not know that he had planned with others to kidnap her under the guise of inviting her to a party.
Part of the evidence in court reads: “On June18, 2008, I received a telephone call from Emeka, the first accused also known as D.J, inviting me to attend with him a party of old school folks of Alvan Ikoku College of Education Primary School, Owerri at All Season’s Hotel, New Owerri at 4 p.m. We agreed to meet and attend the party but somehow it rained and Emeka called to inform me that the party, had been put off to the next day”.
Continuing her evidence, Ginikachi told the court that, “the next day, Emeka again called to remind her of the party for later that day. It was agreed that Emeka would come with a car to pick me in my home for the party”.
As agreed, she said Emeka came, but this time with his friend who became the second accused; and instead of driving into the compound, they stopped some distance from her father’s house.
She walked down, the court was told, to where the two accused persons parked their car and joined them, presumably for the party. “At this point, Emeka thought of changing his shirt and decided that we first drove to his house where he lived with his parents. We proceeded to the home of Emeka Ukaegbu and drove into the compound. As we settled down in Emeka’s room, two men armed with a gun entered and ordered them to lie down on the floor. The first accused, Emeka, identified himself to them and the two armed men took him out of the room.
“Having removed Emeka, the men blindfolded me, tied my two hands with a scarf and sealed my mouth with an adhesive paper. They removed my wrist watch and handbag and led me into another room where a man was put on guard over me. As I was crying, the men told me not to cry, that as soon as they reached and got my father, they would let me go; that once they got the money, they would let me off”, Ginikachi further told the court.
She said that she tried to persuade her captors to release her so that she could talk to the father of the house – that is Emeka’s father, Honourable Emeka Ukaegbu – to placate them with money which they refused to accept. Instead of accepting her plea that they should let her go with a promise that she would protect them from her father, the former Deputy Governor of Imo State, Ebere Udeagu, the kidnappers moved her on the night of June 19, 2008 to Inyishi, the village home of the Ukaegbus, she stated. It was at Inyishi that she was raped by one of the captors, Aboy.
In his submission, the counsel for the first accused person, Emeka Jnr, Chief Pauly Okere, said that PW4, Ginikachi, was not kidnapped and was not detained against her will or deprived of her liberty, rather, he said, she masterminded it.
In his own submission, the Prosecution Counsel, C N Akowundu, drew the attention of the court to excerpts from the statement of the first accused which read: “After this meeting, I planned behind her. At this point I contacted ‘boy’ – his real name not known to me – who helped us in the plan. We were four boys that planned and did it, the name of the boys are as follows; Emeka Junior Emeka, Capon, Boy, his real name unknown, Ogechi. We used Honda Civic blue colour belonging to Ogechi’s father to kidnap her, being Ginikachi; we transferred her from Owerri to Inyishi, my hometown”.
For the second accused person, Ogechi Ekechukewu, Akowundu also referred to his evidence that “Emeka Ukaegbu brought Boy and Nonso in this deal as his watch- dogs”.
Keen followers of the kidnap/rape saga are, indeed, worried that inspite of the warning by the Imo State Governor, Ikedi Ohakim, that any person who causes another harm, either psychologically or physically, must face the consequences of the stipulated penalty for such offences, be it kidnapping or armed robbery, young men still engage in the dangerous business of kidnapping.
Meanwhile, delivering judgement on the Ginikachi kidnap case, the Judge noted that there is no doubt that PW4, Ginikachi, was taken and carried away from the premises of the Ukaegbus in New Owerri layout to the family house of the same Ukaegbus at Inyishi, Ikeduru.
He pointed out that the nagging question is: “If PW4, Ginikachi Udeagu, engaged the accused persons and their compatriots, Boy and Nonso, in the scheme of faking her kidnap and obtaining money therefrom of her father, would the same person she engaged in the scheme turn around to rape her, unless she was a helpless victim?
"If the accused and their compatriots, Boy and Nonso (now at large) have formed a common intention with PW4, Ginikachi Udeagu to prosecute an unlawful purpose, in this case to fake the kidnap of PW4 in order to obtain ransom from PW4’s father. The common intention would manifest in all their actions, even if surreptitiously. None would work at cross-purposes with the other in relation to their common intention.”
Then the judgement: “Against the background of the foregoing analysis, I have no illusion that the first and second accused persons conspired with others to commit the offence of kidnapping, contrary to section 364(2) of the Criminal Code and I accordingly find the first and second accused each guilty on count 1 and count11.
The count 1 charge read: “Conspiracy contrary to section 516 Criminal Code as amended. First accused is sentenced to imprisonment for three years. Second accused is sentenced to imprisonment for three years”. Count 11 read: “Kidnapping is contrary to section 365 (2) of the Criminal Code. First accused is sentenced to imprisonment for three years. Second accused is sentenced to imprisonment for three years. Both sentences are to run concurrently and take effect from the date the accused persons were detained.”