MEN of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested 37-year old Michael Ugwu for taking a 12-year old orphan as he wife after she was given out in marriage by her grandfather identified as Abada who is a native doctor in their native Enugu State.
In yet another case of child marriage, the girl and Mr Ugwu, who claims to work as a police official at a federal ministry in Lagos, both hail from Aji in Enugu-Ezike town in Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State. A police source said that Mr Ugwu, had gone to the Ipaja Police Division, Lagos to report that his wife ran away from home and had since been missing but when they found the girl, through the help of one of his neighbours, that discovered that he had got married to a minor.
A police spokesman said: “He came and reported that his wife absconded and that he even took a loan from a bank to marry her. He even sounded drunk when he came to the station but when we saw the minor he called wife, we had to detain him to get more information because a 12-year-old girl is not ripe for marriage."
However, Mr Ugwu said the girl’s grandfather willingly gave her out to him in marriage at their hometown in Enugu State. He added that there was a traditional marriage to that effect on January 20, 2016 in the village, attended by about 50 persons, including community elders, the girl’s grandfather and other villagers.
According to Mr Ugwu, he never saw anything wrong with taking the girl as a wife because there were elders at the event and they gave their blessings to the union. He added that the girl’s grandfather, who also happened to be his old time friend, had assured him that she was not a small girl.
He explained that he had been under pressure from his family members to get married and when he visited the village earlier in the year, he and Abada, whom he described as a retired Biafran soldier, went to have a drink. Mr Ugwu said he paid the bills and told his friend he needed a woman to marry.
“Abada was happy I paid for his drinks and he assured me he would introduce me to a girl. He said I might not be able to take care of a woman he wanted to give me but that he had another one for me, so the following morning, I visited him with a friend of mine.
“He asked for N500 and I gave him, so around 10pm, he brought a girl to my house. He said the girl he brought for me is his child and that he would want me to marry from their place and I asked if the girl is up to the right age and he said yes, that she was not a small girl," Mr Ugwu added.
Explaining his ordeal to Esther Ogwu, the director of Child Rights Foundation, Mr Ugwu said that due to the number of things he had to buy and the money for the dowry, he took a loan of N200,000 from his bank. In what seemed like a deep regret of his actions, Mr Ugwu said he thinks Abada used a charm to hypnotise him as otherwise, he would not have married such a young girl without knowing it.
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