By Aisha Ismaeel,
Minna
A 50-year-old man, Mallam Sani Yusuf, has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by a Chief Magistrates’ Court in Minna, Niger state capital for defiling a 14-year-old girl.
Sani Yusuf was on Monday arraigned on two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and causing grievous hurt.
Police Prosecutor, Sergeant Bello Mohammed, had told the court that one Hajiya Asabe Zagi of Tudun Fulani area of Minna, Niger State, reported the matter at the Bosso Divisional Police Office on the 27th of March, 2019.
The complainant, he said, had accused Yusuf of having carnal knowledge of her 14-year-old grand-daughter on three different occasions when she went to fetch water from the house where he (Yusuf) works as a security guard.
When the complainant confronted him on the issue, Sergeant Mohammed said that Yusuf was said to have used his pen-knife and stabbed her on her body severally, to which she sustained dip cuts in pats of her body.
The offence he said were contrary to sections 18 (2) and 248 (2) of the Niger State Child Rights Law 2010 and the Penal Code law, respectively.
When the charges were read to him, Yusuf pleaded guilty and begged the Court for leniency.
The prosecutor thereafter prayed the court to try him summarily in line with section 157 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
In his ruling, the Chief Magistrate, Hauwa Yusuf, sentenced the accused to eight years in prison without any option of fine for the first count charge.
For the second count charge, the Chief Magistrate gave Yusuf the option of spending three years in prison or a fine of, N100, 000 (One hundred thousand Naira) while also indicating that the sentences were to run concurrently.
