20YRS OLD GIRL AWAITING TRIAL SINCE FOUR YEARS AGO

                                

 Blessing Effiong from Akwa Ibom state was only 16, and was arrested and detained for being in possession of a stolen N10, 000 phone in 2008. Blessing has been awaiting trial at the female section of Kirikiri Prisons, Lagos for four years now.

 She said” In 2008, I bought a Starcomms phone for N10,000 in order to start a business centre. A few days later, a man called me and said the phone was stolen from him. I told the man I didn’t know it was stolen. We had an agreement that I should return the phone and he would refund my money.

I gave the man my address but when he got to my place, he said the phone was stolen from him along with his laptop and some other vital documents. He accused me of being a thief, called the police and had me arrested. I was charged with robbery and have been in Kirikiri since then as my trial has yet to begin.

She was later interviewed by the Attorney-General of the state, Mr. Ade Ipaye, and representatives of the Office of the Public Defender, during a visit to the prisons to estimate the number of pending trial persons there, in detail how she had been imprisoned since the age of 16 because she could not afford the services of a lawyer.

Effiong said she was arrested at her guardian’s house in Ebute-Meta but was transferred to the Agboju Police Division from where she was taken to an Ikeja Magistrate’s Court.

She said although she was 16 at the time of her arrest, the Investigating Police Officer claimed she was 21 so that she would be tried as an adult.

“I told the IPO that I was only 16 years old and that I knew nothing about the stolen phone but the IPO wrote 21 on my statement and claimed I was lying about my age. I was arraigned as an adult,” she said.

Effiong added that even after four years, her trial had not begun as the court was said to be awaiting advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions. What a wicked world we live in.