Man jailed four years for attempted rape..

A Lagos Magistrates’ Court sitting in Ogba on Monday sentenced one Ganiyu Awawu to four and half years’ imprisonment for attempting to rape a 25-year-old woman, Taiwo Ogundipo.

Apart from the jail term, Awawu was fined a sum of N5,000 by the court presided over by a Chief Magistrate, Mrs. T. Akanni.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the victim, a food seller, was walking along Safuratu Yakubu Way, Ayobo, around 4pm on August 28 when the 29-year-old convict, said to be high on cannabis, called her and bought food from her.

He reportedly ate food worth N250 and was said to have lured the victim to an uncompleted building to collect the money.

When they got there, he was said to have overpowered her.

Our correspondent learnt that he stripped the woman naked and threatened to kill her if she raised the alarm, but she resisted. In the ensuing scuffle, a passerby, who heard her screams, mobilised others and stormed the building.


They freed the woman and took Awawu to a community leader who handed him over to the police.

Awawu had told the police that he was hungry on the fateful day, but did not have money to pay for the food.

He said, “I just finished smoking cannabis that day and became hungry. I bought N250 food from her. I told her to come in to have the money, but I was lying. I was about to rape her when I was caught.”

Upon his arraignment in the court on September 2, he had pleaded guilty to four counts bordering on attempted rape and conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace.

The charges read in part, “That you, Ganiyu Awawu, on August 28, 2015, at about 4pm on Safuratu Yakubu Way, Ayobo, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did conduct yourself in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace by threatening to kill one Taiwo Ogundipo, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 166 (D), Vol. 44 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.”

“That you, on the same date, time and place, in the aforementioned magisterial district, did sexually harass Taiwo Ogundipo by holding her neck and ordering her to remove all her clothes, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 170, Vol. 44 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.”

During the ruling on Monday, a police prosecutor, Inspector Clifford Ogu, urged the court to sentence Awawu accordingly to serve as a deterrent to others.

The magistrate held that the convict should pay a fine of N5,000 for the first count and sentenced him to two years in prison for the second and third counts.

She handed him four and half years for the fourth count, adding that the jail terms would run concurrently.



-Punch