A Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court has sentenced a father, Suleiman Usman, to life imprisonment for defiling his eight-year-old daughter.
Usman was charged to the court by the state government.
The state government arraigned Usman on a two-count charge bordering on defilement of his two daughters of eight years and five years at their residence, at 2, Bale Street, Onisewo area of Apapa.
He pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge.
Usman was first arraigned before Justice Sybil Nwaka in October 2019 before the judge was elevated to the Court of Appeal and the case file was reassigned to Justice Justice Rahman Oshodi’s court where he was re-arraigned.
During the trial, the prosecution called four witnesses among which were the first survivor – the eight-year-old girl, the Investigative Police Officer, the defendant’s wife (the mother of the survivors), and the medical doctor from Mirabel Centre.
Justice Oshodi exonerated the convict of the second charge.
The court held that since the second survivor did not testify to the charge that related to her defilement, the prosecution failed to prove it.
On count one, the court held that the testimony of the first survivor corroborated the medical doctor.
Justice Oshodi said he considered the ingredients of the offences, the confessional statement, circumstantial evidence, and the eyewitness account in sentencing the father to life imprisonment.
According to him, “our society is prone to sexual abuse, sexual crimes against children are so prevalent. Our laws in Lagos have zero tolerance for your gang of paedophiles that is not acceptable.
“In your case, the survivor is your daughter. You put your penis in her virginal and her anus, the survivor was eight years at the time because she has excruciating pain”.
