SAHARA REPORTERS
The policewoman who reported a rape case by her colleague at the Ibie Police station, Edo State, and was subsequently dismissed by the police authorities, Edith Uduma, has again cried out for justice, threatening to kill herself if she does not get justice.
Uduma lamented that if the Nigerian police authorities could cover up a rape case she reported and dismiss her for exposing the matter, how much more would have happened if the case involved innocent civilians.
Uduma said this in an interview with Punch Newspapers.
“What the Edo Command is saying is not what happened. They know I have no rank or support to fight back,” Uduma said.
According to her, the Force Headquarters in Abuja was still investigating the matter only for the Edo command to hurriedly dismiss her.
“I want justice. My dismissal is unjust,” she said tearfully.
Speaking on the detention of her husband and the reduction in his rank by the Police authorities, she said that her husband only brought food for her on the night of the incident.
“He (my husband) used to bring something for me to eat. He brought food that time to the station.”
“If Nigerians refuse to listen to me – because my husband has been in detention, and they have been looking for me to arrest me, to charge me to court – if Nigeria refuses to listen to me, I will just poison all my children and myself. I will die. Because I’m just stranded like this,” she said, noting she had been in hiding and had not seen her children in a long time due to the incident.”
She accused the DPO at the station of luring her to ask for N1 million from the alleged rapist Sergeant Abraham, so as to lure him back to the station since he went into hiding after the incident, only for her (the DPO), to allegedly turn the matter against her.
“If the police force can do this to a police officer, how much more to the innocent and civilians?”
SaharaReporters earlier reported that Edith Uduma was dismissed after the police authorities accused her of demanding bribe from a policeman (now dismissed), who is reported to have raped a minor.
She noted that her only offence was reporting the case against what senior police officers including her station’s divisional police officer wanted.
Although witnesses who spoke to SaharaReporters absolved her of collecting money like police authorities said and also affirmed that she reported the incident to her higher ups, unlike the claim of the police authorities, the police command in Edo has continued to insist that she is guilty.
The Take-It-Back Movement recently petitioned the Inspector General of Police, demanding review of her case while describing her dismissal and husband’s demotion as unjust.
THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN SAHARA REPORTERS
