The Vanguard for the Protection of Rights of Women ( VPRW) has described as worrisome, allegations of rape leveled against a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr. Perekeme Kpodo.
The Secretary General of the group, Ms. Jane Ebiakpo, said in a statement on Sunday that the VPRW was piqued by allegations that Kpodo had sexually assaulted unsuspecting and vulnerable ladies in his hotel in Bayelsa.
A magistrates’ court in Yenagoa, presided over by E. T Empire-Ugwa, remanded Kpodo in prison custody on Friday on two counts of unlawful detention and rape of a lady who worked in his hotel.
According to Ebiakpo, who called for a speedy trial, information at the disposal of the group indicated that Kpodo, a former Special Adviser to former Governor Timipre Sylva on Security, had severally blackmailed earlier victims of his to compel them to drop the cases made against him.
She alleged that the recent case in which he was accused of raping one of his employees, a young graduate of the Niger Delta University, for which he was remanded in prison custody was just one incident out of many cases against Kpodo.
Ebiakpo said that the group would pursue the case against Kpodo to a logical conclusion, stressing that Bayelsa of 2018 would not allow any rapists to subject the women populace to avoidable trauma.
She also disclosed plans to mobilise women in Bayelsa to protest against sexual crimes. Ebiakpo dismissed insinuations in some quarters that the Ordeal of Kpodo has political undertone, insisting that no politician sent him to have forcible carnal knowledge of his latest victim.
Kpodo had insisted that his prosecution was politically motivated.
According to him, “This trial is politically motivated, the case was reported in June to the police. The girl in question made the allegation as a tool of blackmail to cover up a fraud allegation of N500,000 and the case was withdrawn when the family apologised to me.
“But the government has been mounting pressure on the girl to come up and the girl spoke on the phone to my hearing that the matter was closed.”
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