The Lagos Court of Appeal has affirmed the judgment of a Lagos State High Court, sentencing Olanrewaju James, popularly known as Baba Ijesha, to five years imprisonment for indecent treatment of a child and three years imprisonment for sexual assault. Both sentences are to run concurrently.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In its lead judgment delivered by Justice Folashade Ojo, the appellate court found Baba Ijesha guilty on counts 4 and 5, which involved indecently touching and sexually assaulting a minor. Justices Abdullahi Bayero and Paul Bassi concurred with the lead judgment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Baba Ijesha was initially arraigned on a six-count charge, including indecent treatment of a child, sexual assault, attempted sexual assault by penetration, and sexual assault by penetration. On July 14, 2022, Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of the Lagos State Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court sentenced him to five years imprisonment for the sexual assault of the minor, based on the events between 2013 and 2014, contrary to Section 135 of Lagos State Criminal Law 2015.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dissatisfied, Baba Ijesha, through his counsel, Kayode Olabiran, appealed the decision, arguing that he was set up and merely acting a script.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, Justice Ojo set aside the appellant\u2019s conviction on the charges related to 2013-2014 due to insufficient evidence but upheld the conviction based on the April 19, 2021 incident. The court found credible the testimony of Damilola Adekoya (PW1), who provided an eyewitness account of the April 19, 2021, events, and noted Baba Ijesha’s voluntary confession to the crime.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Justice Ojo stated that the prosecution successfully proved that the victim was a child at the time of the offense and that Baba Ijesha’s actions were not theatrical but constituted a personal and criminal encounter. The court emphasized the importance of factual findings and the credibility of witnesses in the trial court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The court ordered the following:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The appellant\u2019s conviction and five-year sentence for indecent treatment of a child (count 4) is affirmed.<\/p>\n
The appellant\u2019s conviction and three-year sentence for sexual assault (count 5) is also affirmed.<\/p>\n
Both sentences are to run concurrently.<\/p>\n
The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency reiterated its zero-tolerance stance on such offenses and encouraged survivors to report cases by calling the toll-free line 08000 333 333.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lagos Court of Appeal has affirmed the judgment of a Lagos State High Court, sentencing Olanrewaju James, popularly known as Baba Ijesha, to five years imprisonment for indecent treatment of a child and three years imprisonment for sexual assault. Both sentences are to run concurrently. In its lead judgment delivered by Justice Folashade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":36798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36799,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36797\/revisions\/36799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}