Adewale Ibitoye, a Nigerian man was on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment by the Ikeja Domestic Violence and S*xual Offences Court, Lagos State for defiling his daughter and marrying her off fora bottle of gin.
Ibitoye was convicted of s*xually assaulting his 14-year-old daughter and subsequently marrying her off to his friend with bride price of the alcoholic beverage.
The presiding judge, Justice Abiola Soladoye, who convicted Ibitoye of the crime, also sentenced his friend, Moses Okrukpe, to life imprisonment for defiling and impregnating the minor.
Delivering her judgment, Justice Soladoye held that the prosecution had convincingly proved the charge of defilement against the convicts.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the judge condemned in the strongest terms, Ibitoye’s act of incest by having s*x with his teenage daughter several times before passing her to his friend for a pseudo-marriage over a bottle of gin.
Justice Soladoye said, “The survivor testified that her father had s*xual intercourse with her on several occasions and that her father gave her hand in marriage to the second convict after he visited their house and gifted her father a bottle of gin.
“She said the second defendant had s*xual intercourse with her, which led to pregnancy and the first defendant, in his testimony, confirmed that he collected a bottle of gin from his friend as wedding rights.
“The testimony of the third prosecution witness, a police investigative officer (IPO), also confirmed to the court that the survivor was 14 years (old) when she started living with the second defendant as his wife and that he registered her in a local hospital in Ijebu Ode while she was pregnant with the baby.”
According to the judge, a 14-year-old girl cannot give consent in marriage, hence, it is a crime for Ibitoye to have married her off the minor to his friend.
She said, “The most pathetic is that the survivor was made to go through torture by making her go through pregnancy at such early age.
“The convicts are hereby found guilty as charged and hereby sentenced to life imprisonment.”
She further ordered that the names of the convicts should be written in the Lagos State S*xual Offenders Register.
The prosecution team, Olusola Soneye and Abimbola Abolade, had told the court that the convicts committed the offence sometime in 2017 in Epe, Agbowa area of Lagos.
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