Court Frees Man Detained for Ten Years

A Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja has discharged and acquitted Ibrahim Usman after spending nearly a decade in detention without conviction, in a judgement that exposed deep failures within Nigeria’s criminal justice system.

Delivering judgement, Justice Rahman Oshodi held that the prosecution failed to establish the offence of defilement against the Defendant, describing the evidence presented before the court as manifestly insufficient to sustain the charge.

Usman was arrested on June 14, 2016, over allegations of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in Ipaja, Lagos, but prosecutors did not file charges until March 2017. Even after the case commenced, proceedings suffered repeated delays as custodial authorities allegedly failed to produce him in court, despite several production warrants issued by different Judges.

According to the court, the Defendant was absent from proceedings between October 2017 and February 2020, prompting Justice Sybil Nwaka, now of the Court of Appeal, to strike out the matter for want of diligent prosecution. Despite that decision, Usman remained in custody for years, until the Lagos Criminal Information System later discovered he was still incarcerated.

When the trial eventually resumed, the prosecution’s case collapsed under cross-examination. The sole witness, Dr Alagbe Oyedeji of the Mirabel Centre, admitted he neither examined the alleged survivor personally, nor tendered the medical report relied upon in court, while the Complainant and other material witnesses never testified.

Justice Oshodi further held that prosecutors failed to prove critical elements of the offence, including the Complainant’s age and evidence directly linking the Defendant to the alleged crime. The Judge ruled that the prosecution failed to establish even a prima facie case, requiring Usman to open his defence.

The court also condemned the repeated disobedience of production warrants by custodial authorities, describing it as a grave institutional concern, while warning that detention without diligent prosecution undermines constitutional safeguards. The judgement has now renewed concerns over unlawful detention, prison accountability and the growing number of awaiting-trial inmates trapped in Nigeria’s overcrowded custodial centres.