Adeyemi COE students get life jail for cultism, rape

Three students of Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, have reportedly been sentenced to prison for raping female students of the school as part of initiation into cultism. The students, who claimed to be members of Eye cult group, raped many female students of the college during the initiation rites.
Two students, simply named Malawi and Otuyemi got life imprisonment while the third was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after being found guilty of rape and cultism by an Akure High Court.
The three students were charged to court after the mother of one of their victims reported the case to the school authority. At the court, the girl testified that she was forcefully taken away by her assailants at gunpoint from the school premises on the day she was raped. She added that one of her assailants threatened to kill her if she raised any alarm.
She also told the court that the boys took her to an unknown destination, raped her and later took her back to her hostel at about 10pm that same day even as one of the accused students asked why the girl didn’t shout for help when she was taken back to her hostel.
The complainant told the court that she did not shout for help because she was afraid for her life and that she was also ashamed of exposing herself to public ridicule if she had made public that she had been raped. Akintolayo who is said to be a girlfriend of one of the group members said she was raped when she followed him home after he insisted on going out with her.
On getting to his house, she told the court, she was surprised to find other boys in the house, who bluntly told her that she would be raped. Akintolayo told the court that a student named Ibijole was the one who removed her clothes, while Festus, her boyfriend, was the first to rape her before the others.
After raping her, she said the boys brought out charms and told her that she had been initiated into their Eye cult group.
After studying the victim’s testimony, the medical evidence brought by one Dr Johnson of the school’s health centre and the police investigations, the presiding judge, Justice O.O Akeredolu convicted the three students. Akeredolu sentenced the first and the second accused person to life imprisonment while she sentenced the third accused person to seven years imprisonment