CYRIACUS IZUEKWE
Justice may have finally come the way of an 8-year old girl in Lagos State, who was brutally defiled by an Islamic cleric, Isah Mustapha, who allegedly lured her into the dastardly act by pretending to be sending her on an errand.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that Justice H.O. Oshodi of the Lagos State High Court sitting at Ikeja, on Monday sentenced Mustapha to life imprisonment for defiling the girl.
The girl had earlier told the Court during the trial that the cleric had carnal knowledge of her in his house in 2017, when her mother sent her on an errand and he called her on her way back from the errand.
“When I was about to get to our apartment, the cleric, Mustapha, called me back saying he wanted to send me to my mother to collect onions from her and bring to him downstairs.
So, I went upstairs to collect the onions, which my mother gave me to give to him downstairs,” she added.
She explained that after handing the onions over to Mustapha and was about to return to her house, the cleric called her back, saying he was not done sending her on errand.
“He said I should enter his house, but I said no. I later entered so he would not tell my father that I disobeyed him. He then said I should take off my pants, but I said no. He later took it off himself and his trousers too, then he slept on me. He put his private parts inside me and had sex with me,” she said.
She noted that the incident became public when her mother tried to gather her clothes for washing and saw bloodstains on her clothes.
In his testimony, Mustapha admitted to sending the girl on the errand, adding that he only inserted his finger in her private parts.
The defence counsel, M.O. Ifarinde, pleaded with Justice Oshodi to temper justice with mercy as her client was a first-time offender.
However, the prosecuting counsel, B.T. Boye, urged the judge to hand the maximum sentence to the defendant to serve as a deterrent to others.
The judge, after considering the argument of the defence and the prosecuting counsel, sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment.