The Akwa Ibom State Division of the High Court sitting in Eket Local Government Area has sentenced a 37-year-old man, Uduak Moses Idimudo, to life imprisonment for raping two girls, aged 14 and 15, both Junior Secondary School (JSS) students in Eket.
Idimudo, a native of Efoi in Eket Local Government Area, was sentenced on Wednesday by Justice Efiong Efiong who found him guilty of 19 out of the 20 counts of rape.
One of the victims told the court that she and her 14-year-old friend were hawking fried cow hides, popularly known as pomo in the country, on the road in Efoi in July 2020, when the convict bought the hides worth N700 and asked them to accompany him to his room to get the money or make a detour to his house on their way home from selling their wares.
She said on their way home, they went back to the convict’s house as he directed to get back their money, but he insisted that they must follow him inside his room, which they obliged.
The first prosecution witness said the convict pushed her and her friend on his bed and forcefully removed their pants and inserted his penis inside their vagina and took turn to rape them and after gave them N350 instead of the N700 he owed them.
The JSS 3 student also narrated how the convict told her and friend to come back to his house for the money but warned them not to tell their parents or anyone else about the rape, else he will kill them.
She told the court that they went home without telling their parents and one month after, in August 2020, they went back to the convict’s house for the balance of their money and the convict again adopted the same method and took turns to rape them again. He, however, did not pay the debt, asking them to come back again.
The minors said the convict adopted the same procedure of raping them from July 2020 to April 2021 until one woman, a neighbour of the convict, who noticed the children coming on monthly to the house of the convict, reported to their parents.
In a one-hour judgement, the trial judge, Hon. Justice Efiong Efiong, said he “believed the testimonies of PW 1 and PW 5 (the victims) as corroborated by the confessional statement of the defendant and the medical reports of evidence of forceful penetration of vagina of PW 1 and PW5.”
He described the defendant as “a despicable character who is worse than an untrained animal and does not deserve to be left free in the community of decent people.”
Justice Efiong held “that the defendant could keep ripping the two minors naked on his bed and raping them in their open view, shows that he is a dirty, wicked and satanic person, who has no regards for the law and morals.”
The court also noted that “the offence of rape is now assuming an alarming frequency in the society and in Eket Judicial Division in particular.”
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