A human rights foundation based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has accused a traditional ruler, HRH Eze CAPT. (Rtd) Promise Onwuchekwa Agu, the Sega – Eli I of Elelenwo of abduction, rape, sexual abuse and sexual slavery of a 17-year old girl, Deborah Ojeka.
In a petition written on behalf of Deborah and her father, Leonard Ojeka, addressed to the Commissioner of Police of River State, the Human Rights, Social Development And Environmental Foundation (HURSDEF) said the offence was committed sometime last year when Deborah, was lured into the job of a house maid job by Promise Onwuchekwa for a monthly-take-home of N20, 000.00. The offer was with neither the consent nor approval of her parents.
The petition alleged that as his purported house maid, Onwuchekwa not only refused Deborah permission to call her parents to inform them of her whereabouts nor paid the monthly wage by which she had been lured in.
Worse still, he ceaselessly and randomly raped her and threatened to kill her if she made any attempts at escape or dared to inform anybody or her parents that she was in his house.
When Deborah eventually escaped, the complaint said that Onwuchekwa, accompanied by four armed men in plain clothes, stormed the house of Mr. Ojeka in search of Deborah, and arrested and detained her for six days at the Divisional Police Headquarters on a trumped-up charge that she made away with his four bullets, a Nokia phone, laptop and the sum of N162, 000.00.
“Mr. Promise Onwuchekwa went to the Elelewon Divisional Police Headquarters and applied for her, Miss Deborah Ojeka’s bail and consequently took her to his house where he continued his unscrupulous sexual maniac and abuse on her person and without regard to her right as a Child of 17 years of age and threatened and frightened her with a story of “how he shot a man with a gun and chopped off another man’s hand with an axe and threatened that if she dare to escape from his custody he will shoot her.”
The petition stated that again on January 31 this year when Deborah escaped, Onwuchekwa returned to Mr. Ojeka’s house and again abducted Deborah at gun point.
HURSDEF noted that Deborah’s family has not been left out of the rage of Onwuchekwa, as he strongly threatened them when they refused his offer to marry their daughter, saying that whichever woman the Eze pointed at for marriage cannot be refused by anyone. In addition, for refusing him to marry their daughter, he constantly threatened them with serious reprisals.
The petition was widely copied to a cross-section that included the Inspector-General of Police, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, the National Human Rights Commission, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Amnesty International, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
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