Man Murders Daughter for a Plate of Rice

the grave

The story of Favour Ekerete (RIP), born in 2007 will comfortably pass as a perfect example of man’s inhumanity to man. The villain of the story is her father; Kingsley Ekerete aged 29, a commercial bus driver who hails from Nto Osung community in Ikot Ekpene LGA of Akwa Ibom state. Kingsley holds just a First School Leaving Certificate and has to drive his bus daily through the bustling traffic of Port Harcourt to make ends meet for his young family.

the suspect

On April 12, 2014, Kingsley returned home like every other day at 1900hrs. Already famished, he trotted toward 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 the innocent child guilty only of satisfying her hunger. The child who was ill before then cried herself to sleep and took seriously sick as a result of the excessive lynching and according to Kingsley’s confession died some hours after the beating.

He then proceeded to place the corpse at a corner of his one room apartment in Obeama, Oyigbo LGA in Rivers State, an apartment that also housed his two other children aged two (2) and three (3). The estranged father didn’t even mind 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 their father and them before he, having made sure his neighbours were all asleep, wrapped the corpse in his own clothing, armed himself with a shovel and conducted an interment for little favour in a shallow grave behind his room.

The tale took a different twist when one Ugwu, the caretaker of the building where Mr Kingsley resides, noticed the unexplained disappearance of Favour who was the darling of neighbours. She (Ugwu) quizzed him and he told a cover up story of how the child had taken ill and he had taken her to a hospital in Umuebulu community where she had died. Ugwu insisted on seeing the body but he blatantly refused and she threatened to report to the Police. She even informed a neighbour, one Pastor Emeka Onuoha of Jesus Reigneth Ministry of the situation. While the accusations ensued, men attached to 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.

Kingsley gave different testimonies to the Police at both divisions claiming that the mother of his children abandoned him to take care of their ailing child alone and child had died for lack of attention as he toiled for money.

The truth was unfolded when his parents Mr and Mrs Ekerete visited the state criminal investigation department (SCID). They told of his strange behaviour even toward the mother of his children who ran away from home to avoid his excesses.

Kingsley has since taken the Police to the site of the burial where the body of the deceased wrapped in blue clothing is visible even without exhumation

 In an interview with the commissioner of police, COMPOL Tunde Ogunsakin on how the drama was unravelled, the commissioner explained that his men, on receiving the file case from Afam police station, noticed that Kingsley’s  explanation on the missing daughter was suspicious and that efforts to reach the mother  was rebuffed  when police started investigation . The Commissioner explained that this is a case of Homicide and considering the nature of the crime, Kingsley needs to go through a psychiatric test before he is prepared for a court of law. The CP in reference to the Child Rights Act sections 4 and 14 also stated that this was a violation of the child’s right to survival and development as well as parental care and protection. This is a lesson for single parent