Ex-policeman gets jail term after confessing to the crime
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Mohammed Alidu, a man dismissed from the police, has been jailed for life by an Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court for defiling a school girl aged nine in a police barracks.
Justice Abiola Soladoye ruled that Alidu was a disgrace to the police because he failed in his job as a law enforcement officer and went on to sexually abuse a child.
Soladoye also held that the prosecution proved the charge of defilement against the convict beyond any reasonable doubt and the survivor’s evidence was fully corroborated by the medical evidence.
“The evidence of the survivor is the most credible evidence in identifying the perpetrator. The vivid and oral testimony of the survivor satisfies the court that prosecution has proved every inch of the ingredients,” the judge said.
“He is a disgrace to the entire police because he failed to uphold law and order as he went on a frolic of his own by engaging in a bizarre and irresponsible behaviour turning the barracks into a sex den.
“It is most chilling. The defendant is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment without the option of a fine.
“He should have his name entered in the Sex Offenders Register of the Lagos State government.”
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Testimony of witnesses
Four witnesses testified against Alidu in the trial.
The prosecution team – comprising Olusola Soneye, Olufunke Adegoke, and Abimbola Abolade – said Alidu committed the offence on 9 June 2018 on Makinde Police Barracks Road, Mafoluku, Oshodi.
The prosecutors recounted that Alidu grabbed the survivor into a wooden house on her way to school and defiled her, according to reporting by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), published by The PUNCH.
They submitted that Alidu was apprehended after the survivor reported the case at a police station.
They said he confessed to defiling the survivor, blaming it on the devil, but later denied it as an afterthought.
The offence contravenes Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
