Confirming the rape incident the Chairman of Human Rights Defender, HURIDE, Mr Sampson Oko Nweke, said the rapist was arrested on Saturday, November 20. Mrs Loveth Odah of the Ebonyi Police Command also confirmed the arrest of the rapist, noting that the Commissioner of Police Aliyu Garba has ordered investigation.
“The suspect of the alleged case of rape is in Police custody now. The CP has ordered a discreet investigation into the matter while awaiting the medical screening/report of the victim.” she stated.
A report by HURIDE made available to the press gives a graphic detail of the incident. According to the organisation, “yesterday (November 20), we led the police to arrest a university professor for allegedly raping/defiling a 12yr old girl of primary five. An alleged habitual child violator, Felix Anyaegbunam is a professor of Geophysics working with Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo (AE-FUTHA) Ebonyi State. He is from Anambra state. His wife who lives in Nsukka is said also to be a professor in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and most of his children are Doctoral Degree holders, according to research. Few days ago, a whistleblower brought a report against the professor leading to his arrest and detention. He is being accused of constant sexual abuse on a 12yr old daughter of their gateman. The victim is from Ezza North LGA of Ebonyi State. However, she has been rescued and currently receiving proper medical examination/attention. In an interview, the victim narrated in details her ugly experiences living with the Prof. She said, ” I was living in the village with my mother. My daddy brought me to live with Prof in Abakaliki. Since June this year, the Prof has been disturbing me. He always comes into my room and be doing what I don’t like.”
“One day around 2 a.m, I ran to my father at the security house and told him that Prof was pressing my breast. My father told me to go back that he will talk with him in the morning. Sometimes, I will wake up and see myself naked. The other day, somebody was touching me in the midnight. I woke up, put on the light and saw Prof lying on my bed naked. He tried to touch me but I slapped him and pushed him out of my room. I was crying. One day, I woke up and my bed was soaked with blood. I didn’t know what happened. I told my father in the morning but he didn’t do anything. He used to tell me that, if I leave Prof’s house, who will pay my school fees? That is how the Prof has continued to disturb me until I told my aunty in the school because I don’t like that nonsense Prof is doing.”
In his words, the victim’s father said; “I am shocked and disappointed. I am the gateman in the compound where the Prof lives. My daughter has been complaining to me about what Prof is doing to her and I have always told Prof that what he is doing is not good. This professor did the same same thing to my wife’s kid sister who I brought to live with him as a house help in 2017. But we didn’t know that, prof was was having sex with the girl and later got her pregnant. That time, she was 17years and was in class five in secondary school but when the professor impregnated her, she dropped out of school.”
“That time, Human rights people came into the matter and called the police but Prof quickly went to the girl’s village with wine, wrapper and money and deceived them that he wanted to marry her. The mother of the girl came to the police with Prof and helped him destroy the case. But after a while, she gave birth to her baby, the Prof collected the baby and sent the girl away. The baby boy is still living with Prof now but that girl is hawking groundnuts in Abakaliki. It was when there was nobody to take care of the little child in Prof’s house that I went to the village and brought this my little daughter to come and look after the child. That is how Prof started sleeping with her. A small girl like this,” the man sobbed.
“When interrogated, the professor of Geophysics who was visibly shaky and apprehensive, initially denied all allegations against him but later admitted, albeit reluctantly and incoherently. He, at the same time pleaded for peace and blamed everything on Satan.”
In 2006, AfroLife after a painstaking investigation published a detailed report of how the self styled professor raped a 12-year-old daughter of his Kenya mistress who had been harbouring him in her house in Rome. Anyaegbunam was arrested in August 2006 after the bubble burst and it came to the open that he had been sexually abusing the 12-year-old since she was seven. The “professor” had been going out with the mother of his victim for five years. Because of the gravity of the crime, he was initially detained at the Regina Coeli prison in Rome before he was put under house arrest.
No sooner the Afrolife publication circulated all over Italy than the fake professor escaped from house arrest because the evidence against him was overwhelming, as a result of which he panicked and decided to flee Italy. Investigators in the case had confiscated Anyaegbuna’s computer which contained incriminating materials. The case had been charged to court but with the trial still on-going the “professor” carefully weighed the option of going to prison, which stared at him in the face or escaping to Nigeria, he settled for the latter option. The Ambassador Willie Wabara led Embassy of Nigeria in Rome failed to act on the AfroLife report by alerting authorities in Nigeria of the presence of the fleeing criminal in the country.
AfroLife did not relent as it kept tabs on the rapist who soon integrated himself into the Nigerian society. Barely months after escaping from Italy, the “professor” had succeeded in entering the academic cycle in Nigeria. In one AfroLife report in early 2007 the rapist appeared at a seminar on Information Technology, and was introduced as an IT expert. He was given a high seat at the event, and wait for it, he actually delivered a paper at the seminar which was beamed to the whole nation on network television.
AfroLife also reported on Anyaegbunam previous rape incidents including the sexual abuse of a Zimbabwean lady. Another Guinean woman he put in a family way had to leave Italy in humiliation after denying responsibility for the pregnancy. He met the Guinean at a social event where he was the compere. The woman later had a baby in France where she went and made efforts to reach the “professor” to inform him she had been safely delivered, but all such efforts failed to yield the desired result.
