A Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin has sentenced a Nigerian pastor to life imprisonment for raping three underage girls within his own congregation, in a verdict delivered on Wednesday, May 13.
Prophet Ajiboye Abayomi Olayinka, General Overseer of the Mission House of Divine Land of Joy and Prayer Ministry, received three separate life imprisonment sentences for unlawful sexual intercourse with three 13-year-old minors. The offences were committed inside the church’s mission house in the Agah area of Ganmo, where he served as spiritual leader.
The court also imposed an additional 14-year sentence for illegally terminating the pregnancies of his victims and threatening them into silence.
Delivering the verdict, Justice Hammed Aliyu Gegele said Olayinka had “used his position as a clergyman to turn his victims into sex machines,” describing him as a paedophile and philanderer whose conduct deserved society’s full condemnation.
The court heard that victims alleged Olayinka administered anointing oil on their bodies in a ritual manner before subjecting them to abuse inside the mission house. They further testified that he forced them to swear secrecy on a Bible, threatening death if they ever spoke out.
Olayinka had been arraigned on an eight-count charge covering criminal conspiracy, unlawful sexual intercourse with minors, illegal abortion, and unlawful possession of firearms. The prosecution, led by Chief State Counsel Issa Zakari, called twelve witnesses before the case was adjourned for judgment.
Justice Gegele held that the prosecution successfully proved rape, unlawful sexual intercourse with minors, and illegal abortion, but failed to establish the charge of bigamy. The defendant was discharged on that count alone. The court also ordered the forfeiture of a pump-action gun recovered from Olayinka to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
