Favour Enuji, a legal practitioner and rights activist, has urged the Delta State Chief Judge and the State Judiciary to release Chiemere Nneji, a 17-year-old male who is being detained at the state police station in Agbor following his conviction.
According to reports, Nneji was sentenced to three years in prison on November 29, 2023, after a panel led by Justice C.N. Ogadi convicted him at a family court in the state sitting at the High Court Agbor.
It was learned that the teenager allegedly committed the rape when he was 15 years old while the female victim (name withheld) was 13 years of age.
Enuji stated that the court sentenced Nneji to three years in prison after he was found guilty of a rape case.
He said, “The court specifically ordered for the prison term of the juvenile to be served at the Delta State Children Remand Home in Sapele.
“However, despite the above directive of the family court, Master Chiemere Nneji was taken from the court and detained at the dungeon of the Nigeria Police Agbor, with mentally unstable and other hardened criminal suspects.
“The family court of Delta State sitting at the High Court Agbor ordered for Master Chiemere Nneji to serve a term of imprisonment for three years having been found liable after two years.”
Enuji, who stated that Nneji had already spent two of the three years, maintained that police officials on duty confirmed that the minor’s arrest was on court order.
Enuji’s findings indicated that Nneji, in addition to being naked and nursing multiple untreated injuries on his face and legs, has now gotten a fever, forcing him to shiver and convulse uncontrollably in the police cell, while weird rashes have also ravished his skin.
Enuji urged the state Chief Judge, the Delta State Ministry of Women Affairs, the Delta State Ministry of Justice, the Human Rights community, and the general public to intervene in the case in which a minor will be detained for more than a week in violation of the family court’s decision and Nneji’s rights under the Child Rights Act and the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s Constitution.
