On October 17, 2018, Ochanya Ogbanje died at the age of 13 from Vesicovaginal Fitsula (VVF), a condition that causes the bladder to bypass the urethra into the vagina.

She developed VVF, which is more commonly caused by surgical complications and labour, after she had been repeatedly raped by Victor Ogbuja, her nephew and Andrew Ogbuja, her aunt’s husband.

But today, both Ogbujas — Andrew and his son, Victor — walk free without consequence.

HOW IT STARTED

Ochanya was born in 2005 to her parents in Ogene-Amejo in Benue State as the last of 11 children. At age 5, her parents sent her to live with Felicia Ogbuja, her aunt, so she could get educated.

Her parents were part of the about 32% of the residents of Benue who were designated to be monetarily poor by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2019.

Rose and her husband decided to help Ochanya escape the fate of the about 260,000 children that were out of school in the state.

But by 2012, Ochanya developed a complication. According to Rose Ogbanje, her mother, Ochanya was taken to a hospital in Okoga Benue where she spent six days and began convalescing.

However, her complications would return with a stronger force. She started to urinate and pass out faecal waste without control.

Rose told the BBC in 2021 that at the peak of her incontinence, Ochanya had to wear pampers for as long as four months.

When her condition became too serious, her parents decided to take her to a hosptal in Otukpo in Benue State. She was taken to Restorer of PathCare Foundation to be taken care of.

According to a 2018 report by Pulse, the reason for her sickness came to light when Enuwa Magarate, the owner of the health foundation where she was taken to, began to look into the cause the matter.

Ochanya was transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Benue, where doctors continued to look after her.

The BBC quoted Margaret to have reported how the doctors said her condition was due to repeated sexual abuse through her anus and vagina.

On October 17, 2018, she gave up the ghost at the young age of 13.

JUSTICE EVASION BASED ON TECHNICALITY

Victor Ogbuja was first caught by Winifred Ogbuja, Ochanya’s cousin and a sister to the perpetrator, according to an account of the events published by Bukky Shonibare, the executive director of Invictus Africa.

Winifred had done what a sibling would do and reported her brother to their parents who let him off with a ‘scolding’. Andrew, the father of the family of eight, then joined in the act.

When the matter was to be prosecuted, however, Victor had vanished. As of press time, he remains on the run and is yet to be found.

Two court cases were instituted against the Ogbuja family — one criminal and one civil. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) instituted the civil suit against Felicia for negligence.

Felicia was eventually convicted in 2022. Mobolaji Olajunwo, the judge who presided over the matter in Benue, sent Felicia to jail on the accounts that she was negligent and failed to protect the child.

She also obstructed justice by preventing Winifred, the daughter who had witnessed Victor raping the victim, from testifying. She was sentenced to just five months in prison though after pleading for leniency.

Under the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, 2015, the offences for which Felicia Ogbuja was convicted are clearly defined and punishable by law.

Section 13(4)(b) of the Act provides that “any person who omits to do anything that is reasonably necessary to prevent an act of trafficking in persons commits an offence.”.

Section 15(1) prescribes that anyone who aids, abets, or facilitates such an offence is liable on conviction to imprisonment for up to two years, or to a fine not exceeding N250,000, or both.

In addition, Section 38 of the Act states that “any person who, without lawful excuse, obstructs or interferes with an authorised officer of the Agency in the performance of his functions under this Act commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine not exceeding N500,000, or to both.”

Andrew, on the other hand, was arrested in 2018, according to a BBC report. He began facing trail on October 10, 2019 at the Benue State High Court on a four-count charge which were premised on alleged rape and cupable homicide.

Andrew denied these charges in court and pleaded that he was not guilty. In April 2022, the Benue State High Court discharged and acquitted him of the four-count charge of rape on the basis that the counsel failed to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.

He noted that investigators, which were men of the Nigeria Police Force, failed to conduct a medical examination on Andrew to match his samples with those in the medical reports presented in court.

The judge also pointed out inconsistencies in the two autopsy reports submitted as evidence. While one from the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi stated that Ochanya died of natural causes, another from the Nigerian Police Forensic Laboratory in Lagos linked her death to complications from sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, Ochunya herself had been recorded on tape narrating the circumstances of her own abuse. When the victim died, she was just a JSS 1 pupil of Federal Government Girls College, Gboko, Benue State.

CONVICTIONS ARE QUITE RARE

Despite the increasing awareness on the plights of victims of sexual violence across Nigeria, conviction rates remain low. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that between May 2023 and April 2024, an estimated 1.4 million people experienced sexual offences, including rape.

In Lagos alone, authorities recorded 5,624 cases of sexual abuse between August 2022 and July 2023. NAPTIP, on the other hand, received 1,278 reports of sexual and gender-based violence in the Federal Capital Territory within the same year.

But the number of offenders who actually face justice is small in comparison.

Per NAPTIP’s Sexual Offenders Register, only about 426 offenders have been convicted nationwide, with over 1,090 cases still in court.

A fact-check by ICIR Nigeria found that from 1973 to 2019, the country recorded just 65 rape convictions in total. Even in states with high reporting levels, such as Lagos, the government reported just over 120 convictions for all forms of sexual offences in 2024.

Meanwhile, state-run reporting channels often fail to provide adequate support for victims.

Just recently, FIJ reported that the names of several convicted sexual offenders were missing from both state and federal sexual offenders’ databases. The platform also reported that the report button for sexual offences on NAPTIP’s website was broken — and, as of press time, had still not been fixed⊗