Emmanuel Thomas l Friday, February 21, 2020
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Akin Baruwa PhD, a former lecturer of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) is now cooling off in gulag. He will remain there for 21 years after he was sentenced by an Ikeja High Court for raping an 18-year-old admission seeker (name withheld).
The actual rape took place a very cool morning. Very few students were around, the birds were chirping continuously in eager expectation of the dawn of a new day. It was 6:05am, July 23, 2015 inside Akin Baruwa’s office in Room 8 at the Faculty of Business Administration Annex building, UNILAG.
He had pushed the innocent girl then 17 into his couch and forcefully penetrated her. That was the day the girl lost her most precious possession – her virginity.
Justice Josephine Oyefeso described Akin Baruwa’s actions as heinous and that the sentence should serve as a deterrent to others.
“The offence committed against this young lady was a violation of her chastity which would have left huge emotional scars from which I pray and hope she will recover.
“I cannot begin to imagine the physical and mental trauma she has had to endure from the man who she considered her father’s friend, a community leader who should have known better. This is a shame! This is a crime that not only offends the survivor, it offends her family, it offends the society at large and it also offends God.
“More painful here is that the convict gave the family the impression that he was a lecturer at UNILAG meanwhile his services were only needed at an ad-hoc basis by the university. He gave the impression that he could assist with the young lady’s admission when in fact, he could do nothing. He used the vulnerability of this young girl to his selfish advantage.
“The young lady said that the encounter lasted for two to five minutes the convict said 10 to 15minutes, was it worth it at the end of the day? Accordingly in line with Section 258 of the Criminal Law of Lagos 2011, Baruwa Afeez Akin is hereby sentenced to 21-years imprisonment.”
But his defence counsel, Mr. H. I Omotoba appealed for lighter sentence for Akin Baruwa, PhD.
“The convict is broken and highly remorseful of his act. The convict is a married man with children aged 12, 10, 4 and 2 years respectively.
The convict aso has aged parents to cater for. My lord, the convict is also a first time offender with no previous criminal record. We urge this court to temper justice with mercy and impose a lesser punishment on the convict,” Omotoba said.
Director of the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP),Mr Yhaqub Oshoala said Akin Baruwa was not remourseful.
“I have never observed such a display of unremorsefulness in a defendant to the extent that the defendant was calling the complainant “jeun tan” a bad nickname, making it seem normal for a married person to use such expressions.
“Neither the state or the society will condone or accept such bad conduct. There are many students out there who are weak and have nobody to protect them.This is an opportunity to put an end to the normal attitude of the defendant,” the Director of the DPP said.
How Akin Baruwa’s problem started
Akin Baruwa and the complainant’s father were community leaders at Abesan Low Cost Housing Estate. The father approached Akin Baruwa PhD, then lecturing at UNILAG to help his teenage daughter gain admission into the institution.
Read his confession of the incident that occured July 23, 2015
“We arrived UNILAG at 6.05am and we went down to my friend’s office where I use as my study room as well as supervision contact. As we were going upstairs, we saw about seven muslim faithfuls observing their normal early morning prayer. In the office, we were talking generally then I offered her tea or coffee, she settled for coffee and she made it for herself. All this while, the door of the office was open and there was no way I could put on the air conditioning.
“She told me as a result of the coffee, she was hot and I needed to shut the door. I responded that it was too early in the morning (before 7am) for us to be alone around that time.
She told me to lock the door that after all, she was matured enough and I did and after that she picked up a textbook to read. She sat on a single chair while I sat on a former three-setter chair.”
“I fell asleep and about 15 to 20 minutes. I got up when she started fondling me. Her hands were all over me and I woke up and I looked at her. By then, she had already removed the buttons of her blouse and I did suck her breasts. She said she needed to pull her white shirt so that it will not be stained and she had her jeans trousers on. We were romancing each other in that position my lord.
“She told me that she wanted me to have sex with her and I replied that there is no way I could practice unsafe sex with her; this was some minutes past 7 am in the morning.
“She sucked my penis and I thereafter released and around that time one of my project students came in but already we had dressed up.
“After our sexual encounter, the complainant and my project student went to the Commercial Center at UNILAG to make enquiries about her eligibility to study mass communication with her Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) score of 211.
“They got information that her JAMB score did not qualify her to write the post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and I advised her to apply to study English with her JAMB score. She left the Commercial Center and she went to see some friends and later came to my office to say farewell and thank me for my effort in helping her for admission.
“She offered to give me a hug as a sign of appreciation and I obliged her my lord. When we hugged she moved her hands upwards towards my penis this was a few minutes after 10am. There were a lot of students outside the office, they sat around the stairs waiting to go in for the next batch of lectures. I told her to be conscious of the students that were outside.
“She threatened to shout and create a scene if I refuse to have sex with her and I told her like I did early in the morning that there is no way that I can have unsafe sex with her and she told me to look for a condom. My lord, I was scared because I noticed the desperation in her. I left her in the office and went downstairs to look for a condom when I returned, I locked the door and turned the other way to wear the condom.
“When I turned back to meet her, she has already removed her jeans trousers and that was how we had sex. About 10 to 15 minutes later she told me that she was okay. I teased her that she was self centered because I was yet to release. I put in my clothes and I went to the toilet to clean myself. This was a few minutes after 10am, we stayed in the office for another 20 minutes before I saw her off to the bus stop.
“There was nothing like rape my lord, I hve known her before she was introduced to me by her father. I took her on three or four occasions to the university and I thought she was aged 23 or 24-years-old because she was plump in stature until she told me she was approaching her 19th birthday.
After the sexual encounters at UNILAG, I received a text message from the complainant’s father threatening to deal with me for whatI did to his daughter. That was how her father stormed my house August 3, 2015 and got me arrested.
“It baffles me my lord, I got to realise that it was a complete set up because I contested against her father for the Chairmanship of Abesan Community Development Association (CDA) which I won.
“I believe it is a way of paying back at me. The complainant was never drugged by me, the coffee she took she prepared by herself. We spent over five hours together and we were both active. There were no symptoms of being drugged my lord. As far as I am concerned, I am innocent of the allegation against me.
Cross Examination
Under cross-examination, Mr Y. G Oshoala, a Deputy-Director in the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) disputed Baruwa’s claim of innocence.
“Did you inform her father that you will be having sexual intercourse with her? Do you know a child below 18-years is incapable of giving consent to sex? If the sex was consensual, why does the medical report state that there was severe injury to her private part? Did her father give her to you as a wife? What will be your reaction if your personal office is used for sexual intercourse?
“As a muslim is it good conduct to have sexual intercourse with someone you are not married to? Why did you lie to the complainant’s father that you worked in UNILAG and not DLI? Was it to prey on his daughter?
Akin Baruwa: “I am not a permanent staff of UNILAG, I do not work where they process admission but I can make enquiries and assist.
“I was not aware that she was not yet 18-years-old, I would not be happy if my personal office was used for sexual intercourse, I didn’t expect us to have sex on that day.
“I never told her father that she had accompanied me to UNILAG before, no religion permits having sex with someone other than your wife. I have no personal office in UNILAG. I never deceived people about the employment status at UNILAG.”
