Knight of St. John Catholic Church, Okpaugwu, located at Low Cost
Housing Estate, Abakaliki, shares a boundary at the back with St. John
De Evangelist Catholic Church, Udemezue Street. But, as Uchenna Inya,
discovered, the place has gradually metamorphosed into drinking spot and
chalet for prostitutes
Knight of St. John Catholic Church, Okpaugwu, is located at Low Cost Housing Estate, Abakaliki.
It shares a boundary at the back with St. John De Evangelist Catholic
Church, Udemezue Street. Beside it is a police station. It has a very
large compound with storey buildings, solely built for church purposes,
scattered in its serene environment.
At night fall, the compound
metamorphoses into something else. Open air drinking, suya spots, food
vendors and commercial sex workers, all compete for space at this
hitherto ‘holy’ place. There are no marble floors, well decorated
settees or cushioned chairs.
But, those who patronise the
‘joint’ are sure to listen to tunes from quadraphonic sound systems
while they consume their liquor. This trend of acquaintance with crimson
sisters, no doubt, leaves a big impression on the minds of the visiting
wolves.
Mrs. Ann Udu is the caretaker of the place. She was
given the premises by the Catholic authority through Mrs. Chinwe Muoneke
to be taking care of.
She lives there with her husband and
children, and operates a restaurant. She also sells drinks, pepper soup
and other edibles. Udu is said to be the one in charge of all the halls
and rooms on the premises. The place is usually very busy in the night
starting from 7pm.
A customer, who wants an accommodation for
short time rest, pays N1,000 for one hour. While selling of drinks and
foods are made open in the area, getting a room on the premises for love
making is secretly and solely done by the caretaker.
Our
reporter visited the place as an undercover and pretended to be a
customer. He interacted with other guests and Udu, who was so lively
with customers on this particular day. She was sipping a bottle of beer,
which some said has become her usual pastime.
One of the
buildings on the premises is housing the restaurant. Inside the
restaurant is a door that leads upstairs where short time rooms are.
Ogechi
Nwete, a 14-year-old orphan, works as a maid to Udu. Saturday Telegraph
gathered that Nwete was chased out of the house following the escape of
her master’s goat from the premises. Nwete, a native of Nsokkara
Effium, in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State was asked by
Udu not to return home without the goat.
She had no place to go
than to wander aimlessly until a Good Samaritan picked her up and handed
her over to the state Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.
She was before the goat issue already nursing ear injuries allegedly
inflicted on her by her madam.
Nwete was also having eye problem
following a slap she received for alleged misconduct which makes her not
to see properly. She said: “My madam chased me out of the house because
her goat escaped through the compound. She asked me not to return until
the goat is found. This happened on July 18.
“This premises
belongs to the Catholic Church but was handed over to my madam to be
taking care of. The church wanted to use where we are now for an event
centre and other church purposes. Unfortunately, my madam turned it to a
place where all manners come for short time lodging with their
mistresses. She usually asked me to quickly lock up the rooms whenever
the woman who gave her the place comes around.
“What happened to
me in my eyes was that her son beat me up one night I was resting after
attending to customers. He asked me what I was waiting for before
packing chairs and tables used by customers and immediately gave me slap
and started kicking me.
My madam was watching and couldn’t do
anything to save me from her bully son. It was during the process that I
lost my eye. I also lost my hearing due to the slap he gave me. I bled
through one of my ears as a result of the slap and now I can’t hear
properly. I can’t also see well.”
Nwete, who alleged that her
madam usually asked her to prepare the rooms for customers, compelled
her to pick condoms used and disposed them to pick remnants of Indian
hemps to ensure that the place is kept clean at all times. “One of the
customers usually takes advantage of this to pounce on me. He had sex
with me while preparing the rooms.
“Other customers later joined
the wicked man and at different times would force me to have sex with
them. While this was going on, my madam would look the other way making
me to start suspecting she was the one behind this wicked act.
In
one of the days I was dressing a room, a customer barged in, held me
down and had sex with me. I complained to my madam and she told me to
leave the person that he was drunk. At a point it became a daily
routine.
“They also touch my breast and bumbum. They smoke hemps
at will. Men of State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the state Police
Command usually raid our place.
They sometimes arrest some of
the customers who smoke Ganga. My parents are dead. It was my
step-brother, Cornelius Nkwede, who gave me to the woman for adoption.”
Head
of Department, Child Development of the state Ministry of Women
Affairs, Godwin Igwe, confirmed that Nwete’s case was reported to the
Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Rebecca Ogbuewu, for necessary
action.
He claimed that Nwete was taken to hospital but medical
reports sighted by this reporter showed otherwise. She has serious eye
and ear injuries that may impair her sight if urgent measures are not
taken.
Igwe admitted that the medical report indicated that the
girl was sexually abused. He said: “The letter was minuted to me to
treat the matter and then I had to minute the letter back to the Child
Abuse Desk Officer, Mrs. Cecilia Elom, and it is a convention that when a
matter is reported to the ministry, we will like to hear from both
parties.
So, the child abuse desk officer wrote an invitation to
the accused person but she came back to tell the ministry that the
suspect refused the invitation. She rather gave a condition without
which she wouldn’t receive the invitation letter. She insisted that she
should produce the victim otherwise she wouldn’t accept the letter. That
was observed for sake of peace and justice.
“Surprisingly to me,
when I went to Imo State to recover a child sold in the area, I heard
that instead of the woman coming to the ministry to tell her own side of
the story, she brought six men to terrorise the ministry and harass the
schedule officer into fear so that she will not carry out her duty
diligently.
This case has both criminal and health aspects and
our duty is to ensure the survival of the victim and that is why we have
referred the case to Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki 1(FETHA1). We
wrote to the Chief Medical Director to direct that doctors should
conduct medical examination on the girl.
“She will also go to
FETHA 2 to see a consultant ophthalmologist for her eyes because she has
hearing and visual impairment. At a glance, you will see that one of
the eyes is small, reduced to a large extent and you don’t need to go to
Lab before you will see that one of the eyes is so small. It is only by
Divine grace that she is seeing with it.
This act of child
abuse, maltreatment and dehumanisation shouldn’t be seen in a civilised
society like this because Ebonyi State is not a banana republic. This
girl has been subjected to modern day profligacy and moral laxity which
to a large extent will affect her future.
“The worse part of it
is that the accused person doesn’t even take the matter seriously. She
has choosen to treat it with high level of levity. She should have been
coming here to ask: where is this child? Is she still alive? Is she
responding to treatment? But to my greatest surprise, she has never come
here for the past three weeks.”
On her part, Elom, said: “The
matter concerning Nwete was brought to the ministry by one lawyer who
wrote to the ministry about the abuse on the child. We only invited the
suspect for questioning. I went to deliver the invitation letter to her
which she refused to receive from me. She told me that she doesn’t have
any maid, that I should go and bring the person she was maltreating.
“I
went back the second day with the lawyer that wrote to us together with
the child. On seeing her, the daughter we met confirmed her status and
even called her name. Along the line, Udu came the next day to the
ministry with an unknown man, who came and said he would slap me. The
man told me that I shouldn’t have invited Udu, that Nwete is not a good
girl.
They went back after that day and came back few days later
with few men. After narrating the whole thing to the men Udu brought
back to the ministry, they saw that the woman did not behave well; they
blamed her for not honouring our invitation.
“I told them that we
are still investigating and the child herself sustained so many
injuries and we should take her to the hospital to certify her health
before any other thing. The peopleleft and said they would get back to
us. But up till now, I have not seen the woman again. In the hospital
where we took this girl to. It is confirmed that she is sexually abused
and physically abused, you can see her ear and eye.
The action we
are going to take is first to take care of her health; she has been
undergoing series of tests after which we refer the matter to the police
because it is the police that investigate criminal matter. But for now,
she is in our custody and we have been taking care of her.”
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