SEVEN years after 13-year-old Ogbanje Ochanya died following prolonged sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by her uncle and cousin, the family of the deceased has petitioned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) over what it described as the “blatant refusal” of the Nigeria Police Force to arrest and prosecute one of the key suspects, Victor Ogbuja.
In the petition dated November 3, 2025, and signed by human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong on behalf of the family, the legal chamber accused the police of neglecting their statutory duty in bringing Victor, who absconded in 2018, to justice.
“We write to bring to your knowledge the blatant refusal of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to apprehend and prosecute a fleeing suspected rapist, Victor Ogbuja, seven (7) long years after he absconded when it was made public that he (Victor Ogbuja) and his lecturer-father (Andrew Ogbuja) repeatedly raped Ochanya Ogbanje, a 13-year-old schoolgirl at Ugbokolo township in Okpokwu Local Government Area of Benue State,” part of the petition read.
The petitioner described the continued failure of the police to apprehend the suspect as a grievous act of injustice and a danger to innocent girls and women unaware of his predatory habit and antecedents.
The family is demanding that the IGP declare Victor wanted, recall the case file from the Benue State Police Command to the Force Headquarters, and provide protection for Ochanya’s family members, who have allegedly continued to face threats and intimidation from the Ogbuja family.
The petition noted that Ochanya, a Junior Secondary School student of the Federal Government Girls’ College, Gboko, died on October 17, 2018, from complications resulting from years of prolonged rape at the hands of the Ogbujas.
It noted that a medical report from the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi, confirmed that she suffered from “faecal and urinary incontinence, which was initially mild and progressively worsened before her death.”
According to the petition, despite Victor’s continued evasion of arrest, the Nigeria Police have failed to declare him wanted or intensify efforts to locate him, a lapse that, according to Effiong, “portrays Nigeria in the eyes of the international community as a lawless country where the rights of vulnerable people are trampled upon at will by powerful people and the elite.”
Background
The ICIR reported that in 2018, Ochanya, then 13, died after years of sexual abuse while living with the Ogbuja family in Ugbokolo, Benue State. Her uncle, Andrew Ogbuja, a lecturer at the Benue State Polytechnic, and his son, Victor, were accused of repeatedly raping her from the age of five.
Ochanya spent four months in diapers’ before several tests revealed that she was sexually violated through her vagina and anus. Doctors later diagnosed Ochanya with Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF) and she was admitted at the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi for two months before she died on October 17, 2018.
Although Ochanya’s death sparked national outrage, the pursuit of justice moved at a slow pace.
In April 2022, a judge of the Benue State High Court, Augustine Ityonyiman, acquitted Andrew after ruling that the prosecution failed to establish sufficient evidence linking him to the crime.
Ogbuja was remanded in custody while his son, Victor was on the run. The manhunt launched for Victor by the police yielded no result at the time of the prosecution.
However, in a separate case, Andrew’s wife, Felicia Ogbuja, was convicted and sentenced to five months’ imprisonment by the Federal High Court in Makurdi for negligence that led to the abuse and death of Ochanya.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP) had charged her with negligence leading to the rape and death of the 13-year old Ochanya. It accused Felicia of failing in her duty to protect the deceased teenager who was her niece from “being raped” by her husband, Andrew Ogbuja, and son, Victor.
The ICIR had also reported renewed public outrage over the case in October 2025, which prompted the senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan to urge Ohanya’s family to submit a petition to her office to help reopen the investigation.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M