Akwa Ibom State 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 council, was sentenced yesterday by Justice Efiong Efiong, having found him guilty of 19 of the 20 counts charge of rape.
One of the victims told the court that she and her 14-year-old-friend were hawking fried cow skin meat (pomo) in Efoi in July 2020, when the convict bought the meat worth N700 and asked them to accompany him to his room to get the money or they go and sell the meat and come back.
She said on their way home, they went back to the convict’s house as he directed to get 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 her friend to come back to his house for the balance 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 turn to rape them, but this time around, he 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 a neighbour of the convict, who noticed the children on monthly basis inside the house of the convict, reported to their parents.
In a one-hour judgment, 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.”