Another Facebook ‘lover’ arraigned for attempted rape, murder

26-year-old man, who allegedly pushed down his Facebook lover from a multi-storey building after disagreeing over sex, was arraigned in Lagos yesterday.

The accused, Arthur Obiora, is facing a three-count charge of threat to life, attempted rape and attempt to cause bodily harm at a Tinubu Magistrate’s Court.

The prosecutor, ASP A. C. Orji, told the court that Obiora met Nkiruka Akabuogu on Facebook and invited her to a club house in Apapa where they had drinks.

The prosecutor said the pair later moved to Obiora’s house at Block 10, Flat 317, 1004 Housing Estate, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Orji said Obiora, who claimed to be an unemployed graduate of Igbinedion University Okada and the Centennial College, Ontario, Canada, shut all the doors in the apartment and demanded to have sex with Akabuogu.

“This was after he had smoked some wraps of Indian hemp. He tried to rape her and threatened to kill her with a bottle of beer. The girl, fearing for her life, then jumped down from the third floor of the high/rise building,” Orji said.

The prosecutor said that the incident happened at about 3 am on October 31.

“The girl was discovered to be lying unconscious in a pool of her own blood about 30 minutes later by the security men in the premises who then reported it to the police.

“The police took the girl to a hospital and after she regained consciousness, obtained her statement,’’ Orji said.

“This case highlights one of the major problems of the social media. The young lady went to visit someone she doesn’t know. She met the defendant on Facebook and they had been chatting until October 30,” he said.

Orji said that the offences contravened Sections 56 (A), 260 and 404 (1) of the Criminal Laws of Lagos 2011.

The magistrate, Mr Martins Owumi, granted the accused bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum.

21-year-old Nkiruka sustained multiple injuries, including a fractured pelvis, and is undergoing treatment at the General Hospital, Marina, Lagos, following the incident.

Nkiruka, a Linguistics student of the University of Lagos, speaking from her hospital bed, said that she went clubbing with the young man she met on Facebook a week earlier, and ended up in his family home at 1004 Estate, Victoria Island, Lagos.

She noted that the young man had earlier talked about sex on phone prior to the outing but she told him she was menstruating.

Nkiruka said that on getting to the house, the man tore her dress and tried to rape her.

According to Nkiruka, the man thereafter pushed her down from the third floor of the building because of her refusal to have sex with him.

But the mother of the young man, who was at home on the night of the incident, said that she was not aware of what happened.

She claimed she slept around 10 pm., while the disagreement between the pair started much later.

The magistrate adjourned the case to November 30.

A 26-year-old post graduate student of Nasarawa State University, Cynthia Osukogu, was recently murdered in a Lagos hotel after honouring an invitation by two men she had met on Facebook.

TheNation