Admin l Wednesday, May 11, 2022
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Sanni Arowolo, (54) wept uncontrollably at the Ikeja Special Offences Court where he had been on trial for almost four years after he was discharged and acquitted of all charges.
“I have been vindicated, he shouted in court”, with his hands raised up. “I am vindicated, thank you, Lord”, he said in a loud tone of voice.
He had spent about four years in correctional centre, before an Ikeja Special Offences Court on Wednesday discharged and acquainted him of the offence of defiling and impregnating his 14-year-old tenant’s daughter. Sanni Arowolo was wrongly accused to have defiled and impregnated a 14 year old girl, a development that lead him to the correctional centre.
Justice Sherifat Sholebo said the prosecution failed to prove the case of defilement against the defendant, beyond reasonable doubt.
She held that the prosecution was unable to establish that the defendant committed the offence, adding that Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) result showered zero probability that the defendant was the father of the child born by the victim.
She said the court had ordered a DNA test to be carried out on the child of the victim to ascertain if the defendant committed the offence.
“The prosecution was unable to establish anything that the defendant committed the offence and that was why the court ordered a DNA test. The court received the report of the DNA through an email and physically through a courier.
“The result of the DNA test showed zero probability. The alleged father lack genetic pattern that can lead to the fact that he impregnated the survivor.
“This man here standing trial before the court may not have been the one that impregnated the child and could not have been the one that defiled her. The man in the dock is hereby discharged and acquitted,” Sholebo said.
The state prosecution, Ms Saidat Fashola had alleged that the defendant defiled and impregnated the victim in her mother’s shop sometime in February 2019. The prosecution alleged that the defendant defiled the victim in the shop he rented out to her mother.
