Ejigbo torture: Court bars journalists from trial

PAUL DADA
Journalists were yesterday barred from the courtroom at the resumed trial of the 10 accused persons charged for alleged torture and sodomy of three women in 2013 at the Oba Morufu International Market in Ejigbo, a suburb of Lagos State.

The trial judge, Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, ordered everyone in the gallery, including journalists, out of the courtroom soon after one of the victims, Nike Agomo, entered the witness box.

Ipaye’s order followed an oral request by the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions, Mrs. Idowu Alakija, who led the prosecution team.

Alakija had urged the court to order that the gallery should be cleared in order to protect Nike, whose age she gave as 17.

“My Lord, the witness ‎is a child, and needs to be protected. She is just 17. We humbly request that the gallery should be cleared while she gives her testimony”, Alakija had pleaded.

Ipaye consequently ordered that the gallery should be vacated.

However, before the order to vacate the gallery, the prosecution’s first witness, Ajoke Agomo, was cross-examined by counsel for two of the accused persons, Mr. Tunji Busari.

Ajoke affirmed before the court that Busari’s clients, Buhari Yusuf and Aruna Abdullahi, were the ones who brought the ground pepper which was mixed with dry gin and rubbed on the victims’ genitals with a stick.

Led in evidence by Alakija on May 21, 2015, Ajoke had narrated the incident to the judge and urged the court to get her justice.

The victim, who identified some of the accused persons, said she was at home when the 1st defendant (Baba Oloja) came and demanded to know the whereabouts of her daughter.

“I told him that I did not know the whereabouts of my daughter, Nike, and he started searching the house.

“When he sighted her at the gate, he slapped me. As I rushed to tell my husband, he and another man, named Tinrin, took my daughter away.

“When we got to the market place, they had already stripped my daughter and my stepdaughter (Julie) naked.

“They then proceeded to strip me naked, tearing my bra and pants in the process. They rubbed pepper all over my face and private parts.

“They beat us with cane. We pleaded with them, but they did not listen. Baba Oloja told my husband to bring N150,000 to release us. We begged him and he collected N20,000 from us.”

Ajoke added that the Baba Oloja and his cohorts demanded that their landlord ejected them from their apartments.

“I sought refuge at a mechanic’s workshop and it was during this process that the baby (Janet) I was nursing died. I am not blaming anyone for her death. I accepted that it is the will of God,” she said.

She stated that she returned to her hometown where she was treated for bruises she sustained during the ordeal.

She added that she was later contacted by Dr. Joe Odumakin, who took up her case and took her and her daughters to the House of Assembly.

The accused persons, who were arraigned on 19 counts on May 5, 2015, include 61-year-old Isiaka Waidi; Saheed Adisa, 29; Lateef Tijani, 37; Ahmed Adisa, 65; and Azeez Akinosun, 36.

Others were 50-year-old Jimoh Busari, Adekunle Adenuga, 38; Oloruntoyin Dauda, 46; Buhari Yusuf, 22; and Abdullahi Haruna, 20.

The charges bordered on conspiracy, assault, sexual assault by penetration, malicious administration of poison, attempted murder, deprivation of liberty and obtaining money by false pretence.