Alleged defilement: Court orders foundation to produce UNILAG Prof’s daughters

Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of a Lagos Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja on Wednesday ordered a child-centred non-profit organisation, Cece Yara Foundation to produce the daughters of an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Lagos, Adebisi Arewa, in court.

The judge gave the order that the children be produced in court on the next adjourned date, August 25, 2022 to enable her have an interface with them about their wellbeing.

Justice Taiwo said she would speak with the children in her chambers, and allow them speak for themselves.

The professor had sued on behalf of himself and his two children, X and Y, against the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice.

Other respondents in the matter are the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Lagos State Ministry of Justice; Commissioner for Youth and Social Development; Executive Secretary, Domestic and Sexual Violence Team in the Ministry of Justice; Mrs Olayinka, Chief Magistrate of Lagos State; O.T Odumole, Principal Social Welfare Officer, Yaba; Commissioner of Police and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Lagos State.

In the suit, the professor is seeking six reliefs, among which is an order seeking immediate release of the applicants to him, an order quashing a forensic interview of the minors purportedly conducted by the foundation without the consent and participation of the parents as illegal, void and of no effect, and an order releasing the children to enable them go to school.

Professor Arewa, who appeared for himself, had told the court, before the ruling, that his children are not properly catered for and are being provided with second-hand clothes in the custody of the Cece Yara Foundation. He said the last time he saw his children was in May 2022.

He also informed the court that the mother of the children, a banker, is not capable of caring for the children due to her work.

Cece Foundation took custody of the children, upon an order issued by a Magistrate Court upon an application by the Lagos State Government, after allegations that their father, Professor Arewa, was allegedly having carnal knowledge of both girls.

He was alleged to have refused to release the victims for forensic examination, but the Law lecturer in an interview with TVC News in May, denied the counter-accusations, and accused the NGO of compromise and plotting to hypnotize his daughters.

He also raised an alarm that the girls have now been “forcibly” taken from their school by welfare workers acting on the court order, which he is now challenging.

Earlie in February 2022, a driver at the University of Lagos Women Society Nursery and Primary School, Akoka, Lagos, Abiodun Matthew, sentenced to life imprisonment by Justice Abiola Soladoye of the Lagos State Special Offences Court, Ikeja, after he was found guilty of defiling one of the minors, following an alarm raised by the father.

Also, A teacher at the Methodist Girls’ High School, Yaba, Lagos, Adewale Bakare, who was earlier remanded at the Nigerian Correctional Centre, Kirikiri, for alleged sexual abuse of one of the girls nine-year-old girl was granted bail by a Magistrate Court in Ogba in May this year, also upon accusations levelled by the father.

But, TVC News gathers that the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Kazeem Alogba, is currently reviewing the case files involving the young girls at the Magistrate Court.