PDP Chieftain Bags Life Imprisonment for Raping Pregnant APC Woman

Obafemi Kolawole, a political associate to Chief Ganiyu Oladiran, a Peoples Democratic Party chieftain in Ilesa, was on 23 September 2014 convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with whipping for rape.

The said Obafemi was alleged to have on 15th September 2007 raped an Action Congress of Nigeria (now All Progressives Congress) member (Tosin Ajakaye, who was pregnant as at the time of the incident) after the 2007 gubernatorial election in Osun state.

Kolawole was charged before the State High Court sitting at Ilesa, on a two-count charge of rape and indecent assault contrary to Sections 358&360 of the Criminal Code cap 34, Vol II, Laws of Osun respectively in the case of The State Vs Obafemi Kolawole HIL\2c\2009.

The prosecution called a total of four witnesses including Tosin Ajakaye, Lawal Sikiru, Dr. A.I Isawumi and the Investigating police officer Sgt Olatunji Arojo in proof of its case, while Obafemi testified in his defence and called additional four witnesses including Chief Ganiyu Oladiran, Adediran Kehinde, Adewusi Olowolodu and Olayinka Alege.

At the trial, the prosecutor narrated her ordeal that on 15th September, 2007, the convict and his cohorts, who are not police officers came to arrest her at her house at about 7:30 p.m. for an unknown offence. On sighting them and knowing their antecedent in the vicinity, she took to her heels. The convict pursued, caught up with her and beat her up. Having overpowered her, he stripped her naked and raped her.

“When my cry for help became unbearable, he covered her mouth. Unfortunately, those living in the same compound with me had gone to Mosque because it was the period of the Muslim fast. Thereafter he bundled me into a waiting jeep to join two other men whom I found in the same predicament as mine,” she said.

She later explained that they were driven to the home of Chief Ganiyu Oladiran, a PDP chieftain, and tied to a tree where the trios were mercilessly flogged. She said Kolawole later untied her and plucked out her pubic hair, put it in her mouth to swallow with dry gin, and thereafter went ahead to insert a tin opener into her vagina and as well poured dry gin all over her body. There he raped her again.