By Abimbola Ogunnaike
A 51-year-old cleric, Nduka Anyanwu, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court in Ikeja for defiling and impregnating two biological sisters.
Justice Abiola Soladoye committed the Lagos-based pastor on Tuesday, 14 February, 2023 of impregnating a 13 and a 17-year-old, both of whom have been delivered of babies.
The clergymen, who was said to have defiled and impregnated the duo on the pretext of having prayer sessions with them, was arraigned before the court over an offence he committed on June 3, 2020, at Arowojobe Street in the Oshodi area of the state.
The prosecution team, led by Olusola Soneye, told the court that the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015. The prosecution had called five witnesses during the trial – the survivors, their parents and a social worker. Anyanwu testified as the sole defence witness.
Justice Soladoye, in her judgment on Tuesday, held that the evidence of the prosecution witnesses was believable and consistent just as he added that the police should have charged the victims/survivors’ parents because they were irresponsible in encouraging the survivors to get defiled by the defendant.
Justice Soladoye, who sentenced the convict to life imprisonment and ordered the convict’s name to be included in the state’s Sexual Offenders Register, said: “On several occasions, one of the survivors returned to the parents to complain of the defendant’s conduct. She was beaten and sent back to the defendant’s place. The prosecution has prove the ingredients of the offences against the morally bankrupt defendant”
