A man in his 40s, Michael Akpan Isaiah, was yesterday arraigned before a Magistrate’s Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, for allegedly defiling his four daughters. One of Isaiah’s daughters said he had done that for more than two years. While the oldest daughter is 17 years old, the youngest is two.
Test at a medical facility confirmed the allegation levelled against the accused. His wife, Mrs. Grace Michael, said the man would first beat up his children and while they were still in pains crying, he would force them to remove their clothes and force himself on them. Isaiah, who appeared before Chief Magistrate Zinnah Alikor, could hardly raise his face once he entered the dock, but did not deny that he did not have carnal knowledge of his daughters.
After the prosecution counsel, Fortune Adanda, an executive member of the state chapter of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), levelled the allegations against Isaiah, the chief magistrate then asked the accused, who did not have a lawyer, to tell the court exactly what happened.
She also asked him to either communicate in Queen’s English or Pidgin English, saying that she would understand him perfectly in either. When she asked if it was true that he committed the crime as being alleged, he said yes.
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The accused said he didn’t know how he ended up committing it, but always regained his senses after the crime. Once he admitted that he committed the offence, the chief magistrate called out his wife and asked her how she could live in the same house with the man and not know that he was molesting his daughters. While blaming the wife for not doing enough to prevent what happened, the magistrate, however, said that the wife was also a victim and traumatised. She said: “There is no sacrifice that is too much for your children.”
Alikor, however, adjourned the matter indefinitely pending when the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) would assign the matter to a higher court, since the threecount charge brought against him carried life imprisonment. She also instructed that the accused be taken to the Port Harcourt Maximum Prison.
Meanwhile, a medical doctor, Furo Emmanuel, who was present during the proceeding, told said the accused could be facing a mental health issue, and needed help rather than being sent to prison. He said: “This is a rare form of affective disorder. You can’t really pin your hand on it.
The clinical manifest is that the man feels worthless. He should see a psychologist. What he did is a way of expressing his worthlessness. “For me, instead of the court sending him to jail, they should send him to a mental facility and his mental health reassessed. Even in jail, he will be a threat to other inmates.”
