A Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja, on Monday, sentenced a 41-year-old teacher of the Mind Builders Nursery and Primary School, Omole Phase 11, Ikeja, Chukwu Ndubuisi, to life imprisonment for raping a six-year-old girl on the school premises.
Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya, who sentenced Ndubuisi, held that the prosecution was able to prove the charge of defilement against the defendant.
The offence was committed by the convicted party in June 2016. Ndubuisi, a part-time art instructor at the institution, was charged with forceful penetration and was arraigned at an Ogudu Magistrate’s Court in Lagos on October 4, 2016, where he entered a not guilty plea.
When Ndubusi was charged, Justice Olufunke Sule-Amzat, a magistrate at the time, granted him bail in the amount of N100,000 with two credible sureties who had to be blood relatives and provide proof of gainful employment.
The case was later assigned to Justice Ogunsanya after the legal advice from the Directorate of Public Prosecution came out. In contrast to the defendant’s nine witnesses, the prosecution called 13 witnesses during the trial.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Ogunsanya, cited several authorities, and held that the prosecution proved its case against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.
The judge held, “The fact, circumstances, and quality of evidence against the defendant was compelling. The first time the victim told her mother of her experience was when she (the mother) was discussing the case of a seven-year-old girl that was defiled and killed which went viral.
“The account of the victim and that of her mother was uncontroverted, corroborated each other, and they gave a good account of the sexual assault.”
Ogunsanya testified that the first time the defendant violated her occurred in the female restroom and that the defendant typically had the victim’s friend call her. According to the judge, the second time the defendant violated the victim was in the school’s art room.
She said, “The victim told the court that sometimes, her teacher (defendant) asked her to remove her uniform and put his ‘bumbum’ into her ‘bum bum’.
“At another time, he called her into the art room, he put her on the table, parted her panties, and put his thing into my thing. She said the victim told the court that when the defendant is finished, he would clean up the victim with water.”
The defendant allegedly repeatedly defiled the youngster and had unrestricted access to her, according to the court.
Justice Ogunsanya threw out the testimony of two prosecution witnesses who were medical doctors for being incoherent, pointing out that they had not been called as expert witnesses.
She also rejected the defense witnesses’ claim that the incident was not captured on the school’s CCTV system. Ogunsanya accepted the findings of the examination performed at the Mirabel Centre, which revealed that the victim had ruptured her hymen and reddish vulva and that there was proof of forceful entry.
As a result, the judge found the defendant guilty of all charges.
Counsel to the defendant, Olagunju pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy saying that no case of improper behaviour had ever been brought against the defendant nor had he ever had any case at any police station until this case.
But the state prosecutor, Kareem Jubril, argued that the law under which the defendant was charged did not give the court any discretion. He urged the court to impose the mandatory sentence stipulated in the law.
Justice Ogunsanya subsequently sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment.
She said, “The defendant (Ndubuisi) is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment for the defilement of a child.”
