Ex-convict Remanded For R@ping Six-Year-Old To Death

Azeez Tajudeen, a 20-year-old ex-convict, has been remanded in jail detention for allegedly raping to death a six-year-old child (name withheld) in Lagos State’s Ayobo region.

According to Punch, Tajudeen, an ex-convict who appeared in Yaba Magistrate Court on Friday, December 8, enticed his victim with biscuits to an unfinished structure where he removed her clothes and raped her four times with his hands on her lips till she fell out from pain and suffocation.

During his trial, the police prosecutor, Chekwube Okeh, stated that the accused, not knowing what to do when he discovered the girl was no longer breathing, left her corpse naked and fled. Okeh told the court that the defendant committed the crime on September 9, 2023, around 4 p.m., on Moricas Street in Lagos State’s Ayobo neighbourhood.

According to the authorities, the deceased’s mother returned from her hawking business on the day of the tragedy but was unable to locate her daughter. People helped her in her hunt for the toddler after she raised the alarm. Someone later stated that the girl was last seen with Tajudeen, who came to her house to fix chairs for her.

According to the mother, when Tajudeen was summoned and questioned, he initially denied knowing the girl’s whereabouts, but after additional questioning, he confessed to carrying her to an unfinished building after buying her biscuits.

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“I slept with her three to four times and she fainted. I did not know that she would die, so I left her there and ran away.”

He was apprehended by Ayobo police officers, who escorted him to the incomplete structure where the girl’s body was discovered naked, with her clothes scattered on the floor. The apprentice carpenter admitted that he intended to sleep with the child but did not intend to murder her. He also alleged in court that he is an ex-convict who was released from prison in August 2023.

According to Okeh, the offence violates Section 222 and is punishable under Section 223 of the Lagos State Criminal Laws of Nigeria, 2015.

“That you, Azeez Tajudeen, on September 9, 2023, around 4 pm at Ayobo, Lagos State, in the Lagos Magisterial District did unlawfully defile and kill one (name withheld) aged eight years old and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 222 and punishable under Section 223 of the Criminal Law State, 2015.”

However, the defendant did not enter a plea. Balogun, the magistrate, ordered that Tajudeen be remanded in prison immediately and that the case file be duplicated and forwarded to the DPP for legal counsel.

She postponed the case to January 22, 2024, in order to seek legal guidance from the DPP.