Cross River: Another rapist convicted and detained in Calabar

By Stanley Ekpenyong, Head of South-South Office

TThree weeks after 25-year-old Aniedi Mfon was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping an eight-year-old girl in Calabar, a high court in the Cross River state capital has jailed another rapist, Prince Joseph Mark.

In addition, two months ago, a certain Ernest Odong Oyira was sentenced to 14 years in prison after being found guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl in the city.

A Federal High Court in Calabar presided over by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu sentenced Mark to three years imprisonment for raping minors aged six and eleven years. The convict was found guilty on two of the four counts.

In Suit No. FHC/CA/86C/2023 between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Prince Joseph Mark, the judge found him guilty of the criminal offence committed on 22 May 2023.

Mark, a neighbor of the two minors, had approached them on May 22, 2023, when they were sent to deliver cooked kpomo (animal skins) that their father was selling to another neighbor who sells palm wine in the neighborhood.

Their father had asked the neighbour to help him sell the remaining kpomo while he sold his palm wine for the day. However, Mark deceitfully lured the children into his shop under the pretense that he wanted to buy the kpomo.

He then sent one of the children to get him a bottle of Coke, which he later drugged, forcibly fed to the children and raped both of them.

Half conscious, the children found their way home and told their parents about the incident before they finally lost consciousness.

The incident was reported to the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, which promptly arrested the rapist.