The Akure Division of the Ondo State High Court on Thursday sentenced a commercial motorcyclist, Dare Ojo, to death by hanging for raping and killing a minor, identified as Zainab Adeyemo, at the Ese/Irun-Akoko road in Akoko North-East Local Government Area of the state.
Ojo had committed the offences on July 17, 2020, while conveying the 11-year-old Adeyemo to a market in Irun-Akoko on his bike.
During the trial, the court heard that Zainab’s mother had hired Ojo to transport her daughter from Ese-Akoko to the Irun-Akoko market.
However, when the girl failed to arrive on time, her worried parents contacted her mother’s colleagues at the market, who said they had not seen her.
The family then reached out to Ojo, who claimed to have dropped the girl off at the market.
A search party was later organized in the community, and the naked body of the deceased was found in a bush along the Ese/Irun-Akoko road.
In his verdict, Justice Yemi Fasanmi held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, relying on the findings of a pathologist from the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, which showed signs of struggle and confirmed that the victim had been forcefully penetrated.
Justice Fasanmi also noted that the police investigation revealed that Ojo led officers to the scene of the crime.
Although there was no eyewitness account, the judge invoked the “doctrine of last seen,” stating that Ojo was the last person seen with the victim before her death.
“The accused was the last person who saw Zainab Adeyemo alive. There was no other person who saw her after he took her away,” he said.
Counsel to the defendant, Kolawole Olusegun Oluwa, pleaded with the court to be lenient.
Ojo himself also begged for mercy.
However, the court sentenced the convict to life imprisonment for rape under Section 31(1–3) of the Ondo State Child’s Rights Law, 2007, and death by hanging for murder under Section 319(1) of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol. 1, Laws of Ondo State, 2006.
The defence counsel lauded the court for its diligence in the case.
