By Tunde Olawale
An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court, has sentenced a 59-year-old artisan, Eze Chukwuma, to double life imprisonment for defiling his two daughters for nine years.
Justice Abiola Soladoye held that prosecution sufficiently proved the two-count charge bordering on defilement against Chukwuma.
Soladoye said that testimonies of prosecution witnesses were corroborated.
According to her, valid evidence was laced, documented and the admission of the convict to have had canal knowledge of his two daughters during cross-examination was crucial.
She said: “The defendant’s incestuous relationship with his two daughters, following the death of his wife in 2008, is senseless.
“The survivors told this court that their biological father had been having sex with them after their mother died during childbirth.
“The oldest was nine years at the time.
“The children were taken to their village, and even after telling their kinsmen about their father’s acts, nothing was done.
“They returned to Lagos, and the second child reported to the school after her older sister ran away from home as she could no longer endure the assault.”
The judge said that the school invited Lagos State Ministry of Education and social workers which led to the arrest of the convict, while the survivors were taken to an orphanage.
“The defendant admitted the act and stated that he was sorry.
“This is also in his statement which was admitted and marked Exhibit A.
“He is a dirty father who should be locked up for life as his conduct is disgracing.
“The defendant is found guilty as charged and he is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment on each of the two charges,” she said.
Soladoye also ordered that the convict’s name should be registered in the Sexual Offences Register of Lagos State.
She praised the survivors and their school authorities for speaking up and reporting to the necessary authorities.
Lagos State counsel, Mrs Olufunke Adegoke, presented five witnesses while the convict testified as a sole witness during trial.
Adegoke submitted that the convict committed the offences between 2008 and 2017 at No. 2 Agbeke St. by Iyana-Era Bus Stop, Ijanikin, Lagos.
Child defilement violates Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
