A 51-year-old Vice Principal has been arrested by the Niger State Police Command for allegedly impregnating one of his female students, a 16-year-old Junior Secondary School (JSS) Three student, just as a Kogi State High Court sitting in Lokoja, on Thursday, sentenced two people, Lucky Jonathan and Daniel Friday, accused of rape to 12 years imprisonment.
The vice principal was also accused of having sexual affair with six other female students of the same school, Day Secondary School, Gidan Kwanu, Tunga, Minna.
The Director General, Niger State Child Rights Agency, Barrister Mariam Haruna Kolo, disclosed this in an interview in her office in Minna, on Thursday, saying that the suspect, identified as Mohammed Mohammed, lured the victim into his office and forcibly had sex with her.
Barrister Kolo, who expressed dismay over the incident, however, noted that the government would not condone such gross violation and abuse of child right, while saying that her department had handed the vice principal over to the police for further interrogation and prosecution.
The suspect was also accused of giving a drug to the pregnant student in order to abort the pregnancy, which was said to be two months old.
The victim (names withheld), in an interview, said the suspect was a friend to her father, and he always invited her to his office. However, on the fateful day, he had sex with the girl in his office and gave her transport fare back home.
Earlier in an interview, the suspect, Mohammed Mohammed, confessed to the offence, promising that he actually intended to marry the girl and help her further her education.
Metro, however, learnt on Thursday that after the suspect was released by the police on bail, he resumed back at work, but the students ganged up to embarrass him, and he was subsequently re-arrested by the police to ensure peace in the school.
In Lokoja, the presiding judge, Justice Nasir Ajana, who is also the chief judge of the state, found the accused guilty of causing bodily harm and raping their victim.
The accused were charged with conspiracy, rape, voluntarily causing hurt and abetment of the offence of rape in contravention of the Penal Code.
The offences were allegedly committed on September 11, 2015 at Otokiti village in Lokoja, the state capital.
Although they both pleaded not guilty during the trial, the court was convinced by the evidence presented by the prosecution as a proof of the commission of the offences by the convicts.
The four exhibits tendered included the confessional statements of the convicts, which the court admitted in arriving at its verdict.
Ajanah, while sentencing the accused persons, said “prosecutrix (the victim) alleged that the second accused (Daniel Friday) had sex with her without her consent or knowledge.
“The second accused himself had corroborated the evidence of the prosecutrix when he stated in exhibit 2 that he had sex with the prosecutrix and that he was in fact the fourth to have sex with her forcibly.
“The torn clothes of the prosecutrix recovered at the scene of crime and the bruises observed on her body also bear testimony to the fact that the act of the second accused was done without the consent of the prosecutrix.
“I am therefore convinced that the prosecution in this case has proved the offence of rape under Section 283 against the second accused beyond reasonable doubt.
“I hereby convict the second accused of the offence of rape contrary to Section 283 of the Penal Code.”
On the first accused person, Ajana said he was “convinced from the plethora of evidence that the first accused took part in encouraging and instigating the commission of the offence of rape by the second accused and others at large.”
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