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Summary
Anthony Okeh, 35-year-old music teacher has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a nine-year-old pupil in Lagos.
Anthony Okeh, music teacher and counsellor of Lachez O International School has been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a nine-year-old JSS 1 pupil. The judgment was given by Justice Abiola Soladoye of the Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on May 21, 2025.
The 35-year-old will be registered in the Sexual Offenders Register as maintained by Lagos State.
The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA), a government body under the Lagos State Ministry of Justice responsible for addressing and preventing domestic and sexual violence, posted news of the development on their official X Page.
During the trial, the State Counsel, Ms Abimbola Abolade, presented two witnesses: the survivor and an Investigative Police Officer, while the defence called four witnesses.
Abimbola told the court that the convict committed the offence on September 6, 2022, at the Lachez O International School, Agege in Lagos. The prosecution submitted that the convict had raped the minor by penetrating her vagina with his penis.
Justice Soladoye said that he was a “pathological liar”, “everything a teacher should not be” by raping his pupil and “a soulless man without any iota of shame.
She also said the case was direct evidence as the survivor was in court to narrate her encounter with her music teacher, a sexual predator. The IPO said that the mother of the survivor reported the case to the police.
According to the judge, the testimony of the investigative police officer was corroborated by the testimony of the survivor when she said that the mother of the girl noticed her reluctance to go to school, and she later confessed to her mother what the convict had been doing to her.
Justice Soladoye advised school owners to recruit teachers with high moral standards to teach in their schools to avoid a dent in their institutions.
Anthony Okeh was therefore sentenced to life imprisonment as the offence of defilement contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
