An Ikeja Magistrates’ Court on Thursday ordered the remand of a 22-year-old unemployed man, Apelogun Abodurin, for allegedly defiling a seven-year-old girl.
The Magistrate, Mrs E. Kubeinje, who did not take the defendant’s plea, directed the police to send the case file to the state Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for advice.
Kubeinje ordered that the defendant be kept in the Kirikiri Correctional Centre pending the DPP’s advice.
The defendant, who resides at Lagos Island, is being tried for defilement.
The prosecutor, ASP Bisi Ogunleye, told the court that the defendant committed the offence sometime in June at his residence.
He said that the defendant called the girl into his room on the pretext of sending her on errand and had canal knowledge of her.
The prosecutor said that the girl told her mother what the defendant did to her.
Ogunleye said the mother of the girl reported the incident to the police, leading to the arrest of the defendant.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that defilement violates Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015, and is punishable with up to life imprisonment.
The case was adjourned until for Aug. 28.
