Alleged Ritual Killing: Ugochukwu Nwamiro Drilled On Text Message From First Suspect, Ifeanyi Dike

The second defendant in murder trial of Ifeanyi Dike and two others was on Friday cross-examined by Principal State Counsel on what he knew about a text message allegedly sent him by first defendant, Ifeanyi Dike.

Ugochukwu Nwamiro was cross-examined by Barrister Chidi Eke before Port-Harcourt High Court presided over by Justice Adolphus Enebeli in which his knowledge of the alleged text message was asked by the principal state counsel.

First defendant was alleged to have sent a text message to Nwamiro in which he allegedly said he had got what he wanted him to get.

The police said first defendant made confessional statement that it was second defendant who allegedly asked him to get body parts for  money ritual.

Ifeanyi Dike, Ugochukwu Nwamiro and Johnbosco Okoroeze are facing prosecution for alleged murder of an eight-year-old girl Chikamso Victory Nmezuwuba in Eliozu in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The second defendant said he received a text message whose sender he did not know and deleted it because he didn’t understand the content of the message.

The first defendant allegedly murdered the eight-year-old girl on 18 August, 2017, and removed some of her body parts, and was taking her body to be disposed of when he was arrested by police on 19 August, 2017.

Her mother said she saw her daughter was missing when she did not come back to her shop after she had left to use the toilet in their residence.

Mrs. Lucy Nmezuwuba said they had looked everywhere for her daughter but could not find her.

She recalled it was around I am on 19 August, 2017 when information reached them that police had accosted someone who was carrying a sack on a wheelbarrow.

She said when she and others got there she saw the person the police had accosted was Ifeanyi Dike who at the time was living with them in the same house.

She said when police asked him to open the sack and he did she saw it was the body of her eight-year-old daughter.

Mrs. Nmezuwuba said her daughter was a “genius” and wanted to become an internationally known ballet dancer.

She said she wants justice to be done in the case of the murder of her eight-year-old daughter.

Similarly, the father of the eight-year-old girl, Ernest Nmezuwuba, said he wants justice to be served in the case of the murder of his eight-year-old daughter.

The third defendant in the case, Johnbosco Okoroeze, is facing prosecution for allegedly helping first defendant to escape as he was taking him to cell at State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) in Port-Harcourt. Okoroeze, a Police Sergeant of Nigerian Police Force, was dismissed from the service.

The Rivers State Police Command put a One Million Naira bounty at the time on the head of Ifeanyi Dike and he was re-arrested in Jos, Plateau State where he fled and brought back to Port-Harcourt, Rivers State and was arraigned.

However, his counsel, Lezina Amegua, said in an interview his client is innocent and would be acquitted.

Justice Enebeli adjourned the case to 19 July.