A 30 years old woman, Udoma Veronica from Oju Local Government Area of Benue State, has been languishing at the Kirikiri maximum prison after being accused of theft.

According to her uncle, Edwin Jarius, who spoke to SaharaReporters, he accused her former employer, Kimberly Laguda, of victimising his sister after “wrongly accusing her of theft." 

It was gathered that the victim was a cook of Kimberly in Lekki.

“It was just after two days of stopping work the lady called her to come and sign an undertaken for telling her other house helps that her child, nine months old son will die”

“My sister had a quarrel with her employees, so she left the work. A day later the woman called her saying that she was threatening the life of her son, which my sister said no, she now asked my sister to come and defend herself. So on getting there, she was arrested and accused of stealing gold and shoe” the elder brother told SaharaReporters.

It was further noted that; “The woman again accused her of missing Korean beads, a pair of shoe & Gold costing about N15.5million.”

The uncle told SaharaReporters that the victim has been in the Kirikiri prison since December last year while the trial for the case had failed to take shape, despite hiring three lawyers.

It was noted that the uncle who is the only family of the victim standing for her can’t go further to ensuring that Veronica gets adequate legal representation due to financial constraints. 

He also told SaharaReporters that he has sold all his major properties including; “2 friggers, ,1 big generator, 2 steriliser, ,1,42inch plasma, and a set of chairs”. 

He also noted that he had a Chemist shop worth over N1million but it was no longer available as he spent all he had on the case.

While the next adjournment is 18 July, 2024, Edwin says he doubts his ability to sponsor a lawyer to handle the case and represent his sister again.

Edwin told SaharaReporters that while in prison, the accused, Veronica suffered from malaria and typhoid and barely survived as she couldn’t get adequate medical attention.

When SaharaReporters reached out to the woman accused of victimising Veronica, Kimberly, she failed to respond to messages sent to her on WhatsApp and did not pick her calls, as of the time of filing this report. 

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