Saturday, 3 May 2014
WICKEDNESS!! Man Killed Daughter Over Plate Of Rice
THE police in Rivers State have arrested a 29-year-
old man, Kingsley Ekerete, who killed his seven-
year-old daughter over a plate of boiled rice in
Obimama, Oyigbo Local Government Area of the
state.
Kingsley Ekerete, 29, a commercial driver who hails
from Nto Osung community in Ikot Ekpene Local Area
of Akwa Ibom State, holds just a First Leaving
Certificate and has to drive his bus daily through the
bustling traffic of Port Harcourt to make ends meet
and put food on the table for his young family.
Judging from his looks, no one would have taken him
for a murderer or imagined that he is capable of
killing his own child.
On this fateful day of April 12, 2014, Kingsley returned
home like every other day at 1900hrs, already
famished. He hurried down to the pot of rice he had
prepared before leaving for work only to find that his
also hungry daughter, Favour, had helped herself to
the meal he had reserved for himself. Kingsley’s
animal instincts became awakened and what
followed were fits of mad rage as the red-eyed father
unleashed his beastly tendencies on his seven-year-
old daughter.
Little Favour Ekerete, who had been ill before this
time, cried herself to sleep and her illness worsened
as a result of the beating she received from her
father. According to Kingsley’s own confession, she
died some hours later.
He then proceeded to place the corpse at a corner of
his one-room apartment, an apartment that also
housed his two other children aged two and three,
not even giving a thought to the implications of
keeping the dead child with her frightened siblings.
The kids bore the ordeal as the remains of Favour
spent a whole night with them before their father,
having made sure his neighbours were all fast asleep,
wrapped the corpse in his own clothing, took a
shovel and buried it in a shallow grave behind his
room.
But Favour’s spirit must have cried out from that
shallow grave for justice, for as much as Kingsley
tried to cover his crime, he was soon found out. One
Ugwu, the caretaker of the building where Kingsley
resides, noticed the strange and sudden
disappearance of Favour, who had been the darling of
neighbours.
She (Ugwu) quizzed her father about her whereabouts
and the latter spun a story of how the child had taken
ill and how he had taken her to a hospital in
neighbouring Umuebulu community where she had
died.
But Ms Ugwu insisted on seeing the corpse, which
Kingley blatantly refused to oblige her. She then
threatened to report to the police. But before then,
she informed a neighbour, one Pastor Emeka Onuoha,
of the situation.
While this was going on, men of the Afam Police
Division who were on patrol were flagged down by
the pastor. Kingsley was arrested and, after
interrogations, was transferred to the State Criminal
Investigation Department, Rivers State.
In an attempt to cover his crime, Kingsley gave
different accounts to the police, claiming that the
mother of his children abandoned him to take care of
their ailing child alone and the child had died for lack
of attention while he toiled for find money. Yet in
another account, he claimed that being so poor, he
had deposited his mobile phone with a Hausa rice
seller in order to get the rice that he had prepared to
feed the children, not knowing that the rice had been
poisoned.
When asked to lead the police to the location of
Favour’s corpse, he also gave conflicting accounts.
He first said she had died on the way to the hospital
and so he buried her somewhere along the way and
couldn’t remember where it was. Then he later said
that the body was in a mortuary at a neighbouring
village.
But the truth was unfolded when his parents, Mr and
Mrs Ekerete, visited the State Criminal Investigation
Department (SCID). They told the police of Kingsley’s
strange behaviour even toward the mother of his
children, who ran away from home to avoid his
excesses. Kingsley’s father also narrated how his
son had called him immediately after the child’s
death.
He has since taken the police to the site where he
buried his daughter in a grave so shallow that the
corpse is visible even without exhumation.
Speaking on the development, the Commissioner of
Police, Tunde Ogunsakin, explained that his men,
after receiving the case file from Afam Police Station,
noticed that Kingsley’s explanation on his missing
daughter was suspicious and that efforts to reach the
mother of the deceased was rebuffed when police
started investigation.
He said that this is a case of homicide and that
considering the nature of the crime, Kingsley would
need to go through a psychiatric test before he is
taken to court for prosecution.
According to Ogunsakin, the Child’s Rights Act
Sections 4 and 14 state that this is a violation of the
child’s right to survival and development as well as
parental care and protection.
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