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•Expected date of delivery set for October 15, 2022 — Medical report shows

 •We’ve been vindicated, DSS reacts

By Soni Daniel, ABUJA

A teenager who was arrested alongside some gunmen at Njaba community in Orlu Local Government of Imo State in March this year, is seven months pregnant and not four, a report seen by Vanguard, has revealed.

The latest medical report cited by Vanguard yesterday, contradicts online media reports claiming the teenager, whose name was given as Chiamaka Okoro, who was arrested along with some gunmen in Imo State, had been impregnated by DSS operatives in whose facility she is being detained.

The report cited by Vanguard indicated that Chiamaka Okoro who was arrested on March 14, 2022, when security agents stormed some gang leaders’ hideouts at Njaba community was born in May 2006, and was already pregnant by the time she was arrested and taken into the custody of the DSS.

Two comprehensive test pregnancy reports prepared by two hospitals on different dates and places, confirmed that Chiamaka was pregnant as early as January 22, 2022 and is expected to put to bed in the second week of October 2022.  While she was arrested and detained in the DSS facility on March 14, 2022, the first medical test conducted on her by a government hospital indicated that she was already in the 23rd  week of pregnancy as at June 3, 2022 when the test was done.

Similarly, a confirmatory medical test conducted on her in a private hospital on July 22, 2022, at the instance of Imo State government, indicated that she was pregnant for 27 weeks and six days and was due for delivery on October 15, 2022.

A top source close to the matter said yesterday:  “It is clear from the confirmatory medical report done by a private hospital in Owerri that the girl’s expected date of delivery is October 15, 2022, which is an indication that she had taken in as early as January this year before she was arrested on March 14, 2022.

A security report indicates that Chiamaka, who was co-habiting with one of the gang leaders, identified as Ejim, now at large, when he was arrested at Njaba, kept mum on her pregnancy until May this year when the baby bump began to show.

It was also gathered that when questioned on the matter, the teenager admitted she was put in the family way by the said Ejim who is on the run over suspected complicity in orchestrated killings and destruction in the state.

It will be recalled that following incessant killings and destruction in that part of the state, security operatives raided the area and arrested some gunmen along with some young girls who were living with the suspects.

Some of the girls, it was learned, were reportedly forced into the camps of the gang leaders for sexual purposes and had no means of escaping from their captors.

When contacted on the latest development, the Public Relations Officer of the Department of State Services, Dr. Peter Afunanya, said the service had been vindicated by medical reports, adding that none of the agency’s operatives could have flouted laid down standard operational procedure by sleeping with a minor in its custody.

“We have been exonerated by the two medical reports that you have found out by your investigations and we have nothing to add, knowing that the DSS as a disciplined and professional agency has its standard operational guidelines that cannot easily be flouted by any staff to indulge in by going to sleep with woman in its custody,” Afunanya said yesterday.