A Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Court in Anambra State, has ordered that a couple, Mr. Okechukwu Okonkwo and Mrs. Ekpereamaka Okonkwo, be remanded in prison for using underage girls for prostitution in their brothel.
No fewer than nine girls, three of whom are aged 13, and some others not older than 19, were found in the brothel.
The woman (36), who owns the brothel, was arrested last week by the youths of Oba community in Idemili North Local Government Area, when they bursted the facility being by underage girls for prostitution.
The woman after escaping to Asaba, Delta State, later sent her husband, Okechukwu (39), to bribe the state Commissioner for Women’s Affairs and Children’s Welfare, Mrs. Ify Obinabo, with N300,000, so that she could return to business.
The woman was arrested after the commissioner, tricked the husband and played along with him.
The commissioner was said to have accepted the money and asked her husband to bring her for settlement but she was arrested when she appeared.
The defendants, who appeared in court on Wednesday at the Magistrate Court, Awka, were charged for committing official corruption, preventing the course of justice and procuring about five underage girls for prostitution purposes in Oba.
Their offences were said to be punishable under Section 495(a) of the Criminal Code Cap 36 Vol II, Revised Laws of Anambra State of Nigeria, 1991, according to the charge sheet.
The commissioner’s media aide, Miss Chidinma Ikeanyionwu, who was in court to monitor the case, spoke with journalists, saying: “They were, however, ordered to be remanded at the Nigerian Correctional Centre, Awka, and Onitsha, respectively, while the case was adjourned further to July 12, for ruling on the bail application.”
