- 41-year-old docked for defiling lover’s 12-year-old daughter
A 55-year-old cleric, Piler Erekwa has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment with hard labour by the Rivers State Family Court.
Piler Erekwa earned his conviction for defiling and impregnating the 15-year-old daughter of his church member in the Ndele community, Emuoha Local Government Area of the state.
Erekwa, who is the presiding pastor of the Glorious Covenant Church was arrested in late June 2023 by men of the Rumuji Police Division.
In his judgment on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, the presiding Chief Magistrate, Ogeh Elkanah, ruled that Pastor Erekwa would pay the sum of N500,000 to the family of the abused teenage girl for the medical bills accrued during pregnancy.
Chief Magistrate Elkanah said the cleric will pay the bills upon completion of his jail term. Erekwa had pleaded guilty to one count charge of sexual abuse when the charge was read.
The charge was preferred against him by the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department of the Police Command.
The cleric had also allegedly proposed termination of the pregnancy, but the girl’s family who had confronted him with the issue objected to it.
Meanwhile, journalists were barred from covering the court proceedings, as the Chief Magistrate excused newsmen from the courtroom immediately after he called for the matter.
The Chief Magistrate explained that the Family Court was not like a regular court, hence journalists must seek leave of the court before reporting a matter from a family court.
Likewise, Chief Magistrate Bola Osunsanmi of the Ikeja Chief Magistrates’ Court, sitting at Ogba, has ordered the remand of a 41-year-old man, Nnamdi Dike, for allegedly defiling his lover’s 12-year-old daughter.
Dike, a security guard, who is a resident at No. 27, Salami Street, Akute, in Ogun State, is facing a count charge of sexual assault preferred against him by the police.
The magistrate, who did not take the defendant’s plea, ordered that he should be remanded at the Kirikiri Custodial Centre pending legal advice from the Director of Public Prosecution.
The prosecutor, Raji Akeem, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, had earlier told the court that the defendant committed the offence in November 2022 at No. 37, Shogbade Street, Powerline area, Ifako Ijaiye, Lagos.
He said the 12- year-old girl had confided in her teacher how the defendant, being her mother’s lover, allegedly sexually molested her.
Akeem stated that the defendant usually molested the victim whenever her mother was not at home and would threaten to kill her if she told anyone.
The prosecutor added that the teacher, however, informed the victim’s mother, who reported the case at the police station.
According to him, the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
Consequently, Magistrate Osunsanmi remanded the defendant in the custodial centre and adjourned the case for the DPP’s advice.
