The Ekiti State High Court in Ado Ekiti has sentenced two teachers to 44 years imprisonment without an option for offence of raping their pupils.
Justice Adeniyi Familoni on Tuesday in the judgement declared that the defendants – Gbenga Ajibola (43) and Olaofe Ayodele (52) deserved severe penal sanction for their misdeeds.
He said it would serve as a deterrent to others who might want to follow their footsteps.
The judge then sentenced the defendants to 20 years imprisonment each without an option of fine on count one and two years each on count two without option of fine.
He said that the sentences should run concurrently, implying that they would each spend 20 years in jail.
The prosecution led by Kunle Shina Adeyemi had earlier told the court that the defendants, raped two female students aged 15 and 17 years (names withheld) sometimes in November 2019.
The teachers were arraigned before the court on March 2, 2022 on three counts of rape and abuse of office, while the prosecution stated that the offence contravened Section 31(2) of the Childs Right Law, Cap. C7, Laws of Ekiti State, 2012.
One of the victims in her testimony during trial, said that Ajibola was her computer teacher, and always disturbing her during classes.
She claimed that on the fateful day, he instructed her to be in mufti and gave her N200 for transportation to a meeting point.
“On this fateful day, he told me to be in mufti and gave me N200 to go and wait for him in front of a filling station on Bank Road. He later came there alongside Mr Olaofe, but before they came, one of my classmates also met me there. He told me that Mr Olaofe asked her to wait there for him’, she narrated.
“When they came, we all left for a hotel, around the Oke-Ila area of Ado Ekiti. On getting there, we were taken to different rooms where Mr Ajibola had sexual intercourse with me. After that day, he continued to disturb me. When I could no longer bear it, I narrated what happened to my mother who later took the matter up’, she added.
The prosecutor in support of his case called four witnesses and tendered statements of the victims and defendants’ medical reports, as well as the report of the panel of enquiry, among others as exhibits, while the defence lawyer Lawrence Fasanmi called six witnesses in defence of his clients.
