An alleged child rapist whom the Lesotho police are looking for is said to be freely walking the streets of Gaborone.
Sunday Standard’s information is that a Limkokwing University of Creative Technology lecturer-pastor, who allegedly raped a 16-year old Mosotho girl, is in Gaborone. The lecturer, Benedict Odhiambo, a Kenyan married to a Motswana woman, allegedly raped his Mosotho maid at his Maseru home.
Until May last year, Odhiambo was Head of Business faculty at Limkokwing Gaborone but was transferred to the Maseru campus following unfavourable press reports. Sunday Standard reported that his wife was the sole beneficiary of a mysterious staff development programme at the university. He had hired Samwel Ogenga, a secondary school drop-out, a fellow Kenyan with bogus qualifications, to teach a course called Legal Aspects of Business to associate degree students. The forgery, as reflected in the CV, was so amateurish that it had Ogenga starting his primary school in Kenya at the age of one. His CV and passport bore different birth dates. Odhiambo’s stay in Lesotho was very brief.
In March this year, he allegedly raped his 16-year old maid who had been working for him for a few weeks. The matter was reported to the Child and Gender Protection Unit at the Maseru Central police station. A female neighbour of Odhiambo’s told The Public Eye, a Lesotho newspaper, that the morning after the alleged rape, she found the girl outside his rented apartment in Ha Hoohlo in a state of acute trauma.
“She was crying and looked dishevelled. I asked what was wrong and she told me her employer repeatedly raped her the previous night,” the neighbour told The Public Eye. When the case was reported to the police, Odhiambo is supposed to have immediately fled to Gaborone. On numerous occasions, he has been sighted roaming freely around town by some of his ex-colleagues at Limkokwing.
“I saw him at a garage in Mogoditshane the other day. He was driving his Corolla car,” a source said on Friday.
From Maseru, Moswabodi Mohlomi of the Lesotho police confirmed that they have been looking for Odhiambo through Interpol since March when he is supposed to have raped a minor. Lesotho’s age of sexual consent is 18 years.
Strangely though, the Interpol office in Gaborone says that it has not been formally notified about Odhiambo’s case and that if it had, it would have acted swiftly to apprehend the suspect. In addition to his Limkokwing job, Odhiambo was a pastor at a tithing Mogoditshane church. Some of his parishioners were Kenyan lecturers at Limkokwing.
Ogenga has fared no better. His contract was terminated after the Sunday Standard expose’. When the university would not pay him his terminal benefits, he showed up one day at the school and raised so much hell that the police had to be called. The university’s argument for its decision was that Ogenga did not qualify to get his benefits because he held bogus qualifications.
Interestingly, when the school was asked whether it was satisfied that Ogenga was qualified, its spokesperson answered in the affirmative.
“I am confident that he is qualified for this job as Legal Aspects of Business discusses the legal implications in business and does not imply that one has to have a law qualification,” Limkokwing spokesperson, Mercy Thebe, said at the time of the saga.
For his alleged misconduct at Limkokwing, Ogenga has been charged and because his matter has not been finalised, he is a remand prisoner at the Gaborone Central prison.
Source: Lesotho Sunday Standard
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