Court jails man for life for raping his daughter, claiming a native doctor directed him
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Amechi Ogo, 28, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for raping his own four-year-old daughter, despite claiming he lost his sense after a native doctor laid hands on him and directed him to have sex with any woman he saw.
Judge Flora Azinge of the Asaba High Court held the testimony of the child, the witness who caught Ogo in the act, and the confessional statement of the defendant proved beyond reasonable doubt he committed the act.
Police arraigned Ogo in court on a charge of having unlawful carnal knowledge of his daughter on 31 May 2018 contrary to Section 218 of the Criminal Code Law of Delta State.
The prosecution, led by Ministry of Justice Sexual Offences Unit Director, Patricia Akamagwuna, told the court Ogo came home on a fateful day and demanded sex from his wife.
When his wife turned him down and left the house on an errand, he forced himself on his four-year-old daughter. A neighbour caught him in the act and he bolted from the scene, the prosecution recounted.
The police later arrested him and he made a confessional statement which was tendered in court.
But in his trial, Ogo retracted the confessional statement and denied committing the offence.
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Court rejects an afterthought defence
Regardless, the court held the defence Ogo adduced in his confessional statement that he lost all sense of reasoning after a native doctor laid hands on him and directed him to have sex with any woman he saw, was untenable and an afterthought.
The judge described him as a paedophile whose conduct in raping his own four-year-old child was callous, animalistic, barbaric, and against the laws of God, according to reporting by Vanguard.
She ruled society needs to be protected from people like Ogo who prey on children.
Akamagwuna told reporters after the judgment the Ministry of Justice would continue to aggressively prosecute all sex-related offenders in line with the ministry’s zero-tolerance policy to such heinous crimes.
The Sexual Offences Unit of the Ministry of Justice previously recorded three judgments in sex-related offences cases in this current legal year.
Ogo has since been registered in the Delta State Sex Offenders Register and his details uploaded to the national database.
