The Abia state police command has arrested and paraded a pastor who operates a church and a medical centre which has been converted in to a baby factory at number 252 Faulks Road Aba. Speaking in Umuahia while parading the pastor who gave his name as Christopher Adebanya Tochukwu and other suspected criminals, the Commissioner of Police (CP) Leye Oyebade said that the pastor has been raping the pregnant girls at his medical centre.
Oyebade said that when one of the girls was interrogated she claimed that the pastor has been raping them and in one of his attempt to rape one of the girls, he was stabbed on the neck by the victim with a glass object she laid her hands on. He said that one of the girls who gave her name as Imeobong Udoh under interrogation alleged that her two months old baby she delivered there was forcefully taken away from her by the wife of the pastor and sold to an unknown person. The Abia CP said that his men from Ariaria police station who went for the operation was able to rescue a two weeks old baby girl who has been taken to a motherless baby’s home for care and custody.
In an interaction with Blessing Ariet, she said that the pastor tried to rape her and when she refused that he started beating her with belt leaving several marks on her body. She said that there was a time when he attempted to sleep with her forcefully but had to stop, “When his wife came suddenly into the room she was kept and he pretended that he was examining her stomach”.
The other girl who gave her name as Ikechukwu Jane said that the wife of the pastor who is now at large is aware of her husband’s raping of the girls in the medical centre, “The wife said that when he sleeps with the girls that the babies in our womb are being fed naturally”. Oyebade said that the operatives of Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the command stationed at Obehie division arrested Godspower Emeka aged 28 years of Orji street Obehie for allegedly stealing Mercy Emeka aged 3 years of the same address. He said that Mercy was sold to Kelvin Ogbunigwu aged 35 years of Omuma in Rivers state for the sum of N150,000, “The baby who has been recovered and the suspect who sold her is her uncle”.
When The Nation spoke with the Emeka, he said that the load of feeding eleven children in their family was becoming too much, “So when one of my friends Ogbunigwu came and told me that there is someone who would buy the baby I sold her to him”. When asked why did he not sell one of his children since he said that he is married with children, he said, “It is the devil and I regret my actions and plead that my sister should forgive me for my devilish action”.
Oyebade said that the strategy the command has out in place in fighting heinous crimes has started yielding fruits as has his men under Ndiegoro division intercepted and engaged a five man armed robbery gang in a gun duel very close to a first generation bank in Aba. He said that after the gun battle, “Two of the hoodlums were gunned down, while three of the suspects escaped their operational car a Nissan Laurel with registration number AE 221 ARG and other items were recovered”.
The CP also paraded several other suspected criminals including burglars who specializes in breaking of shops, including recovery of fire arms from suspected armed robbers.
The Nation
