Daudu Jimoh, 62, was found guilty of raping a nine-year-old child and given a life sentence by the Ado Ekiti division of the Ekiti State High Court.
Since the crime was committed in 2019, he has been arrested and formally charged with rape.
The charge read, “That you, Daudu Jimoh, on September 27, 2019, at Ilupeju Ekiti, within the jurisdiction of this court, did rape a nine-year-old girl, contrary to Section 31(2) of the Child’s Rights Law, Cap. C7, Laws of Ekiti State, 2012.”
“Baba Cooler (the defendant) was our landlord; he had had sex with me four times before my sister caught us on that day,” the victim testified. “He had warned me not to tell anybody or else I would die.”
“In the afternoon of that day, he called me to his room. He asked me to sleep on the chair; he removed my pants and put his private parts in my bumbum. He was doing it when my sister caught us. My sister explained all what happened to my mother.”
Prosecutor Julius Ajibare presented four witnesses, together with the defendant’s comments and a medical report, as evidence.
Through his attorney, the defendant admitted to having committed the crime but denied having penetrated the victim’s private regions.
Justice Lekan Ogunmoye ruled that the defendant’s written and oral confessions proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was responsible for the crime.
“In all, the prosecution had proved his case beyond reasonable doubt against the defendant. The sole issue for determination is resolved in favour of the prosecution. He is convicted as charged. He is sentenced to life imprisonment.”
A cross-sectional cohort study involving 192 senior public high students across 16 local government areas in Ekiti State, Nigeria, was carried out by Olabode Akintoye in August 2019. The study found that twelve adolescents (6.3%) among the respondents had been sexually assaulted before the survey, and both sexes were evenly affected.
The study also found that health consequences of adolescent sexual assault are grievous and sometimes irreparable like the case of Ochanya, a 13-year-old Nigerian girl who was raped at eight by both father and son and who later died from complications of vesicovaginal fistula from the repeated sexual assault.
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