Justice is yet to be served in the case of the gruesome and mind-boggling murder of the 8-year-old Chikamso Victory Nmezuwuba in Eliozu in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State two years after.
The prime suspect, Ifeanyi Dike, who allegedly murdered the minor on August 18, 2017, was said to have dismembered her body and taken some of the body parts for alleged money ritual.
Upon his arrest by officers of the Rivers State Police Command in Eliozu on August 19, 2017, Ifeanyi Dike had said that he was asked to bring the body parts for money ritual by one Ugochukwu Nwamiro, who is second defendant in his murder trial.
When the case came up on Thursday, June 13, 2019, after previous court proceedings on the matter, the presiding judge in the case, Justice Adolphus Enebeli, overruled a no-case submission by counsel to the second defendant in the case, Ugochukwu Nwamiro.
The second defendant’s counsel, Barrister sonye Ndah, had made the no-case submission to the court saying that the prosecuting counsel could not establish any case against his client and had asked the court to strike out the matter against the second defendant.
Second defendant’s counsel, Barrister Sonye Ndah, has said that he will open his defence for the second defendant, Mr. Ugochukwu Nwamiro, at the next adjourned date for the case, June 28.
He stated this in an interview on Friday after Justice Adolphus Enebeli of Port-Harcourt High Court overruled his no-case submission, which would have set his client free because he said he had no case to answer.
Ifeanyi Dike, Ugochukwu Nwamiro and Johnbosco Okoroeze who are first, second and third defendants respectively in the case, are facing trial for the alleged murder of an eight-year-old girl, Chikamso Victory Nmezuwuba.
The first accused person in the case, Ifeanyi Dike, allegedly murdered the eight-year-old Chikamso Victory Nmezuwuba in Eliozu in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State on August 18, 2017 and was alleged to have taken some of her body parts. He claimed that it was the second defendant who asked him to provide the body parts for money ritual.
However, counsel to second defendant, Barrister Ndah, said at an interview last Friday that his client was innocent of the allegation.
Ndah said that a text message allegedly sent by Ifeanyi Dike to Ugochukwu Nwamiro to inform him that he had provided the body parts for the money ritual did not come from the first defendant’s phone.
He said: “Evidence has been exposed in this matter that the second defendant is free and is innocent. Even the text message that they relied on in evidence, the IPO confirmed to the court that it was sent at the police station. First defendant collected the phone from a policewoman when they asked him to send the text message. The text message did not even go from Ifeanyi Dike’s phone because when his phones were opened in court the two sim cards in his phone were GLO Sim cards but the sim that sent the text message was an MTN sim card. We applied to MTN, in fact, I sued MTN and MTN was able to expose the call record of the number that sent that message. It was an MTN number….”
Third defendant in the case, Johnbosco Okoroeze, who was a Police Sergeant, is facing trial for allegedly helping first defendant to escape while taking him to cell at the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) in Port-Harcourt, and was consequently dismissed from service.
The Principal State Counsel in the case, Barrister Chidi Eke, who spoke with newsmen after the ruling on Friday said that he opposed the no-case submission which was made by second defendant’s counsel.
Justice Enebeli who overruled the no-case submission by second defendant’s counsel, adjourned the case to June 28 and to the 5th, 12th and 19th of July, 2019 for hearing in which case second defendant’s counsel will have to enter a defence for his client.
The Rivers State Government took over the prosecution of Ifeanyi Dike’s murder trial from the Rivers State Police Command.
The Rivers State Police arrested Ifeanyi Dike on 19th of August, 2017 and paraded him before newsmen at Police Headquarters on Moscow Road in Port-Harcourt for alleged murder of the eight-year-old girl, Chikamso Victory Nmezuwuba.
The mother of the eight-year-old Chikamso Victory Nmezuwuba, Mrs. Lucy Nmezuwuba, said in an interview at the time of her daughter’s death that she saw that her daughter was missing on that Friday of August, 18, 2017 when she did not come back to her shop after she left to use the toilet in their residence saying that they started looking for her when she did not return.
She said that her daughter was a “genius” and wanted to become an international ballet dancer.
She described the alleged killer of her daughter, Ifeanyi Dike, who at the time of the incident was a 200-level student of University of Port-Harcourt, as “dubious” saying he was not associating with people where he lived with them in Eliozu.
She had said that justice should be done in the matter.
Similarly, the father of the eight-year-old girl, Mr. Ernest Nmezuwuba, had also said in an interview that justice should be served in the death of his daughter.
