23rd March, 2023
By Ngozi Njoku
An Ikeja Magistrates’ Court on Thursday ordered the remand of a 41-year-old man, Chuks Ngene, charged with defiling and intending to harm a 15-year-old girl by endangering her life.
The Magistrate, Mrs Ejiro Kubeinje, did not take his plea.
She ordered that he should be kept at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre, pending advice of the state Director of Public Prosecutions.
Kubeinje adjourned the case until April 11 for mention.
The police had arraigned the defendant who’s resident in Igando, Lagos State, on charges of defilement and causing grievous harm.
The prosecutor, DSP Kehinde Ajayi, told the court that the defendant committed the offences on March 15, on One Day Street, Ishuti Road, Igando.
She said that Ngene lured the teenager to his house, defiled and impregnated her.
“The defendant on the fateful day took the girl to some place and unlawfuly and with intent to poison her, forced her to drink a noxious substance alleged to endanger her life and that of the unborn child,” the prosecutor alleged.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that defilement attracts up to life imprisonment, according to Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
Causing grievous harm pertaining to poison or other noxious substance is liable to 14 years imprisonment according to section 243 of the Law.
(NAN)