- Anguished mother narrates how pastor raped her daughter for three years
For defiling sexually violating eight pupils aged between six and 11 in his Koranic lessons class, one Adam Farouk, a cleric will spend the rest of his life in jail.
Days ago the religious teacher was convicted and sentenced by an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Justice Abiola Soladoye in her decision agreed with the arguments put forward by the prosecution. Justice Soladoye further added that the prosecution proved the ingredients of the eight-count charge bordering on sexual assault by penetration brought against the cleric beyond reasonable doubt.
Her Lordship who remarked that that the court did not fall for the cleric’s lies, described him as morally deficient and an embarrassment to the Islamic faith.
According to Justice Soladoye, the evidence of the pupils were corroborated as they identified the cleric as their teacher who penetrated their vaginas with his index finger. She again held that evidence of the 10th prosecution witness, a midwife with the Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF), Mrs Oluchi Nwoke-Okoi, revealed that the pupils had vaginal injuries.
Her Lordship equally held that the defendant asked the pupils to turn their backs while he defiled them one by one.
“The demeanour of the defendant is nothing to write home about. His stony face appears mischievous; he is extremely unkind and ruthless, fingering his students with his index finger. What an Islamic teacher who took undue advantage of poor students in Islam and messed around with their purity and dignity!
“He is meant to teach his students morals, discipline and values, but alas, the reverse was the case. The dignity and safety of our students must be cherished. Dirty Islamic teachers of his kind must be locked away and be made to pay for their dirty sexual indiscretions.
“The defendant is hereby convicted of all the charges and sentenced to life imprisonment on each of the eight counts, but the sentences shall run concurrently.”
Soladoye also ordered that the convict’s name should be written in the Sexual Offenders Register of Lagos State.
A fortnight ago the court in a related development, heard the story of a businesswoman whose 17-year-old daughter was allegedly defiled by one pastor, Chris Mcdouglas.
The aggrieved mother alleged that Mcdouglas, a pastor with Peculiar Generation Assembly Church in Lagos, allegedly had sex with the minor at the back of his church and in different hotels on several occasions.
The woman, who was led in evidence in chief by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Dr Babajide Martins, told the court that the defendant raped her daughter from 2017 to 2020 in the guise of taking her out for gospel ministration.
Currently, Mcdouglas is standing trial on nine counts bordering on defilement, rape and sexual assault by penetration, preferred against him by the Lagos State Government. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The businesswoman told the court that when she confronted Mcdouglas, he burst into tears and blamed it on the devil.
“Pastor Mcdouglas will come to my house and ask my daughter to follow him for ministration so as to use her talent as a chorister to bless others. Unknown to me, according to my daughter, when he takes her out for ministration, he will branch in a hotel and have sex with her. When I confronted him with some leaders in the church, he said he was deceived by the devil and told me to forgive him.”
The distraught mother, who gave evidence before Justice Ramon Oshodi, said she recorded her conversation as well as the pastor’s alleged confession on her phone.
“The pastor, whom I trusted so much with my family and saw as my spiritual father, entered my house anytime I was not around to have sex with my daughter. My daughter told me Pastor Mcdouglas would sneak into the house while I was not around, cover the curtains, cover her mouth and force himself on her. My daughter said when he sees that she wants to shout to attract our neighbours, pastor will bring out the fairly-used clothes that I sell and pretend to be selecting from it.”
She further revealed that her daughter’s alleged sexual encounter with the defendant drove her (victim) into depression, which made her faint constantly. When this happens, she said, the defendant would come to the house to pray for her daughter and then ask them to sow seed to the church for her to stay alive.
“I used my salary most times to sow seed on the instruction of Pastor Mcdouglas and my husband also gave him money to buy supplements for me. She said sometimes, the pastor will call her to his house to help wash his children’s clothes and ended up raping her in his house. He threatened my daughter that she would die if she told anyone about it.”
During cross-examination by the Defence counsel, Mr Suleiman Salami, the girl’s mother told the court that she had known the defendant for more than 12 years and that her husband had been outside Nigeria for 10 years.
