Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf of the FCT High Court Maitama has sentenced a clergyman, Pastor Basil Princewill, founder Mountain Mover Ministry International Nyanya, to seven years in prison for rape.
Pastor Princewill was arraigned in court by the police on allegation that he forcefully had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl, between July 27 and Dec. 31, 2011 inside his church and his house at Nyanya, Abuja, without her consent and impregnated her. He was said to have given her drugs with a view to aborting a pregnancy. Princewill was charged with four counts bordering on rape, impersonation and attempt to cause abortion and abetting miscarriage.
Delivering judgment in the case on Tuesday, June 25, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf berated the clergyman for allowing the devil use him to commit such a “shameful and satanic” crime.
”l must consider the faith of a young girl and the society. It is even worrisome when the person involved is a man of God who we should look up to as next to God, those who serve in the Lord’s vineyard are expected to be an example to the society. We have a duty to send signal that this attitude should not be tolerated, it is regrettable that the person who called himself man of God will be involved in such shameful disgraceful and satanic act. He would face the prison walls like a monastery so that when he comes out, he would have been born again,” the judge said.
The judge said since he was a first time offender, he ”is sentenced to seven years for the offence of rape and five years for the offence of abettment which will run concurrently.” The clergyman was convicted on count one, which is rape and count three which is abettment to cause abortion.
“I believe the evidence of the PW2 (victim ) to be true and the PW1 (her mother ) told the story in the same way the victim told the court too. The evidence of the accused was inconsistent, and confusing also and the direct evidence given by the victim to her mother narrated the ordeal the victim went through in the hands of the accused,” the judge held.