Mrs. Tina Ugo, a trader, is fighting for her son, Ebube, who has been imprisoned since 2020 for a rape crime he has vehemently denied committing. Despite her efforts, the case has been plagued with series of trial delays, which she sees as injustice in itself. In this interview with Anne Agbi and Joshua Uche, Mrs. Ugo tells her side of the story as she knows it, maintaining her son’s innocence and pleading the Lagos State government, justice-focused CSOs and well-meaning Nigerians in general to come to her support to get justice.
A Trader, Mrs. Tina Ugo, who sells second-hand clothes known popularly in Nigerian parlance as okirika, sat quietly with her friend, her lone companion on the five-seater chair in a row at the Special Offences Court, Ikeja, Lagos. She listened to the court proceedings, almost absent-mindedly, as she patiently awaited her son’s case to be called.
Her son, Ebube Ugo, now 23, was arrested in 2020 for allegedly defiling a neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter named Gift Chiarika. According to Mrs Ugo, Gift only stayed with her at night for two weeks before her son was wrongly accused and arrested. She said Gift’s father, who is a security officer, pleaded with her to help take in his daughter and keep watch over her at night while he went to work; whilst she went back to his house in the morning, when he returned from work
According to Mrs. Ugo, Gift’s father moved into the compound as a single father in 2019 with his daughter and a young man whom he told the neighbours was his friend’s son.
She said the allegation against her son was farfetched, as the accused, Ebube, did not even live with her but with his boss from whom he was learning barber work. She said her son only came home whenever he needed to pick up his clothes or wash them.
She told this reporter that this was how she has been coming to court, waiting and hoping for the moment her son will eventually be tried; but that she has had to go back home disappointed and in tears each time, because the case has hardly seen the light of day in court.
Naturally, her emotions run higher any time she manages to sight or meet her son as he is been led out of court. Usually, he would ask her in tears if there was any hope of him getting justice.
On this fateful day, after sitting for hours in court, one could see how restless and defeated she seemed as she walked out of the courtroom to speak with her lawyer, Mrs. R. O. Alabi, who was absent at the court sitting, on phone. The lawyer confirmed that the case had been adjourned yet again, and this expectedly plunged Mrs Ugo into yet another feeling of dejection.
She burst into tears as she narrated the story of her three-year ordeal at the hand of her neighbour, Mr Roland, and his family. Her cries literally shook the walls of the courtrooms as they drew the attention of the workers and passersby. Some stopped to listen, shaking their heads in pity. So harrowing was her cry that court officials had to plead with her to take the interview outside, as courts were in session. She appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to come to her aid and help get her son released from incarceration.
She said ‘Mr Roland, who is Gift’s father, moved into an apartment in the house I lived in 2019; he had not even lived in the apartment for up to a year before this incident occurred. He moved in with his daughter. When we, as neighbours, asked about his wife, he said he was no longer married to her because she was in the habit of cheating on him with other men, an act which he said was forbidden where he came from.
‘One Sunday I was coming back from church, I am a Redeemer; and I saw him coming with his daughter, holding our Sunday School manual. So I asked if he was a Redeemer, and he replied in the affirmative. I asked where he worshipped, and he said at Pastor Paul’s church, and I him my church was in our street, not far. I told him anytime he could not make it to his church, he could come to ours. I told him we used to do Bread of Life there every third week of the month, that it’s like Holy Communion service, and he said okay.
“One day, Mr Rowland came to meet me and pleaded with me to let Gift stay at my house, because as a security man who worked at night, he was never at home to keep watch over her. We had a neighbour he used to keep her with, but the family had relocated.
He said to me: “Mama Ebube, they said I should not bring this girl to work again, please let her be sleeping in your house; and in the morning, help me put her in my room. By 8 O’clock, somebody will relieve me and I will come back.”
The girl is eight years old, and I was staying alone. Like I said, my son was staying with his boss where he was learning barber work; so I agreed.
At night, sometimes it was the neighbours that would chase her to come and sleep. There was a day she was out till around 11 pm, and the neighbours downstairs had to tell her that it was late and that the woman in whose house she slept had already gone to bed. It’s then that she would carry her mat and come over. Sometimes, out of annoyance, I would tell her to stop knocking at my door. I’d tell her, ‘if you don’t want to sleep in my place, no problem, you can sleep anywhere you like; after all, I didn’t force you to come and sleep in my house.’ This was not even up to two weeks after she started sleeping in my place.
“On Friday, October 2, 2020, I was in the market, when Mr Rowland called my number. He said his wife took him to Human Rights section at Oko-oba Police Station and two days before that Friday, the children in the compound has told me, ‘Mama Ebube, Papa Gift, don carry Gift go give him mama o. He says e dey piss, e no dey wash plate, e no dey wash the clothe wey e take piss. I say make e carry am go nau, shey Man dey train pikin? E good as e go carry am go give him mama, make him mama take care of am. The pikin dey piss too much.’
Translated, this means ‘Mama Ebube, Gift’s father has taken her to his mother, he complained that Gift does not do the dishes, she bed wets and does not wash the clothes she bed wets on. I replied that he should take her to her mum, that a man does not train a child and that it’s a good decision to take Gift to her mother, so she could be well taken care of. The child bed wets a lot.
“I was at the market from 9 am when Gift’s father started calling me till 6 pm when I returned from the market. On my way from the market, I bought sugar because my Blood Pressure was low. I had planned to take it with salt to drink garri, hoping that I could regain some strength. As I got home, I had not even climbed the stairs, It was just as if somebody called them at the Police station that Mama Ebube was around, and immediately, my son came ‘Mummy I want to come and take my clothes’ because he did not pack his clothes to the place he is staying, so sometimes he will come and pick and wash.
Whenever my boy came to wash his clothes, he came with one of his friends. As he was washing, the boy would be helping him to rinse it. After washing, he would say: ‘Mummy, please in the evening, help me pack it o, don’t allow it to stay outside.’
I was still downstairs when Rowland came barefooted, with a woman. The woman wore a pair of jeans and a shirt. I asked who she was, and he said she was his relative. before I knew what was happening, the woman had cuffed my son. She said he was under arrest.
My son started crying, asking me what was happening. I could not explain either because I did not understand what was going on. I started crying and pulled at Rowlands’s shirt to tell me why he was getting my son arrested.
I followed them to Oko-oba Police Station, with a man and woman that accompanied me, where I saw Gift’s mother; her name is Priscilla. We met two people from Human Rights there. Immediately, the Human Rights woman (obviously a Benin woman) just got up from where she was sitting and asked Gift, ‘Come, come, come, how many times you say this boy sleep with you?’
I was shocked at the question. But fortunately, Gift replied saying, ‘Ebube did not do anything to me; it is my Daddy and my Uncle’.
It was at this point that Ebube started screaming, ‘Mummy what is this?’ I also began asking what was happening.
I asked them what was happening because this boy did not stay with me. I said, madam this thing you are doing is not good. This is my only child, is this what you all have planned for the only child I have?
Before we knew what was happening, they took him and put him in a cell. This was on October 2, 2020.
Since then, I’ve been going from one police station to another seeking help, but no way. They said they wanted to run a test on the girl. My landlord followed me, we got to Mirabel Center, Ikeja, and we went in with Gift’s mother. Before we got to the entrance of the place, a woman stood at the door. She raised her hand to collect the paper from Mama Gift, she asked her who I was and Mama Gift said I was the boy’s mother. She also asked who the man with me was and she said the man just came with me.
The woman then said that I was not supposed to be there. She said I can go under a tree and wait for them. My landlord said okay. I don’t know the woman but I knew that they had already planned it, maybe they called her on the phone that they were ready and she came to stand at the door so I wouldn’t gain entrance.
My landlord then said we should go and stand under the tree and wait for them. We went under the tree. We were there for about an hour when he said we should go and check whether they had finished. When we got there, we met the Investigative Police Officer IPO outside. My Landlord now asked, ‘Madam since they said we are not supposed to be here, can we go? She said yes and we left.
In the evening, when I went to the Police Station at Oko-oba, the Human Rights personnel, named Madam Uzor said, ‘They say make you bring money, you say you no get money;’ she then took the koboko which was beside her and started flogging me until she broke my small finger.
After spending two weeks at Oko-oba Police Station, Ebube called me that they were about to take him to the Police Command. When we got there, they told him to give a statement, he said he did not know what to write on the statement because he did not do anything. My landlord was there with my neighbour’s brother, they said he must write, so Ebube wrote that ‘I don’t know what you people are saying’, Madam Uzor collected the paper from him and tore it. She said he must write that he slept with Gift.
My neighbour’s brother and my Landlord rebuked her saying, ‘Madam why are you doing that, this boy does not stay with his mother. Instead of you to go investigate the perpetrator, you are trying to get him to admit what he did not do. Madam what you did is not good, you should not have torn his statement.’
This argument, Mrs Ugo said, almost led to a quarrel and Ebube flared up saying that he is not even writing anything again and they can go ahead and do what they want. They started begging and then he went ahead and wrote his initial statement.”
According to Mrs Ugo, after spending six months at the Police Command, Ebube was taken to Apapa Medium cell. “It’s been three years and five months now, and Ebube has been there. That is my only child, I do not have a husband. The child I pleaded to God to give to me. I am begging Nigerians to come to my rescue, Ebube is innocent. If there is a way this can be proven, I will be glad; if it is to run a test, we are ready. They arrested Mr Rowland before her father
Since this case was taken to court, I have been the only one coming, they only came to court once. They brought the child to court on that day after her mother had fed her with lies. She said I do go to the market by 5 am, and I always left her with Ebube.
“I screamed ‘God! Which Ebube?’ When she was coming to sleep in my house, I do gift her items from my market. I sell second-hand clothing popularly known as okrika. Anything that I saw in my bale which I know a kid could wear, I brought for her, whether pants, sox or dress. There is nothing I did not do for this girl. It is not as if she was living with me or I was looking for a helper. I had finished having children, I’m even menopausal. Ebube is my last and only child. It is my last period I used to birth the boy they were trying to take from me.”
According to Mrs Ugo, it was when this event occurred that a woman who used to live with Rowland and his wife, said she once reported Mr Rowland to Gift’s mother when she discovered that Roland was sleeping with his daughter Gift when she was five years old, and that Gift’s mother was nonchalant about it, saying, if he is sleeping with her, then he is not her father. She said the woman claimed she is surprised that Gift’s mother is now trying to pin it on someone else when she knows the real culprit.
Mrs. Ugo further pleaded with Gift’s mother to remember God in her dealings because she knows what happened to her daughter. She warned her that when the repercussion comes she should not say the wicked ones are after her.
