Ese Oruru: Appeal Court Affirms Yunusa’s Conviction, Reduces 26 Years’ Sentence

A Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt has affirmed the conviction and sentence of Yunusa Dahiru over the abduction and rape of Ese Oruru in Bayelsa State.

The three-member panel unanimously upheld the convict’s sentence to five years for count 2 and seven years for counts 3, 4 and 5, respectively, but said they were to run concurrently from the date of his arraignment on October 25, 2018, and not consecutively as earlier awarded by the high court. 

Consequently, the panel awarded 7 years jail term for the convict instead of the 26 years he was earlier to spend.

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Following an appeal by Abdul Mohammed (SAN) seeking the quashing of the conviction and sentence, Justice Ridwan Maiwada Abdullahi agreed with the submission that the trial court was wrong to have exceeded the years prescribed in the counts in the exercise of its discretion. 

Dahiru was on May 21, 2020, sentenced by a Federal High Court in Yenagoa presided by J.E. Nyangi for kidnapping 14-year-old Oruru in 2015.

He was awarded a cumulative term of 26 years term for five-count charges in the offences of conspiracy, abduction, seduction into illicit intercourse, sexual exploitation and unlawful intercourse with Ese Rita Oruru.

 The court found that Dahiru, who was a tricycle operator in Yenogoa, had taken Ese to Kano on August 12, 2015 without her parents’ consent and had unlawful carnal knowledge of her for months within the period when she became pregnant and delivered.

Daily Trust