Admin I Tuesday, June 02, 2026
A MAN accused of abducting and raping a 12-year-old girl has walked free from court after the prosecution’s case utterly collapsed.
Dauda Salami was acquitted and discharged of all charges by a judge who blasted the justice system after the young victim, her mother, and four police officers failed to show up to give evidence.
Salami had been staring down heavy charges of defilement and abduction following an alleged incident in the Bariga area of Lagos in July 2021. He had vehemently denied the charges since his arraignment in October 2022.
But at the Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court, Justice Rahman Oshodi ruled that prosecutors had failed miserably to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
In a scathing judgement, Justice Oshodi revealed that out of nine witnesses listed by the prosecution, not a single one actually showed up to court.
Even a police officer, Inspector Onyeke Aleihunu, who was given special permission to testify via video link, snubbed the trial.
Instead, desperate prosecutors were forced to rely on just one witness—a nurse-midwife from a women’s charity who could only present a medical report. Because the nurse didn’t witness the alleged attack, the judge ruled her evidence was nothing more than “hearsay.”
”The prosecutrix was not called. Her mother was not called. No police officer testified,” Justice Oshodi said.
”The accounts of the prosecutrix and her mother were not given on oath before this court. They were not tested by cross-examination.”
The furious judge took aim at the wider justice system, warning that witnesses vanishing into thin air is a “serious and recurring” problem in Lagos.
He slammed the “ineffectiveness” of the courts’ ability to force people to testify, pointing out that many of the witnesses were alive, well, and living right under the court’s nose but simply didn’t bother to turn up.
Justice Oshodi also took aim at a stalled Witness Protection Law that has never been implemented, calling it “an aspiration rather than a reality.
Refusing to shift the burden of proof onto the accused, the judge noted that Salami’s legal team didn’t even need to mount a defense because the prosecution’s case was so incredibly weak.
”The prosecution’s evidence was so plainly insufficient that it required no answer,” the judge remarked.
Ruling that not a single element of the alleged crimes had been legally proven, Justice Oshodi acquitted Salami on both counts and ordered his immediate release from custody.
