The presiding Judge of Bauchi State High Court No. 11, Justice Nana Fatimah Jibrin, has sentenced Jalaludeen Zakari, a head teacher in Burra, in the Ningi Local Government Area of the state, to 11 years in prison for fingering one of his pupils.
WikkiTimes reports that Zakari’s victim, a 6-year-old girl, was in the school to undergo a screening for admission but ended up being defiled by Zakari who held her for hours after official school closing hours.
Barrister Dayabu Ayuba, the prosecuting counsel who is also a state counsel with the Bauchi State Ministry of Justice, disclosed this in an interview with our correspondent in Bauchi.
He said during the trial, he presented three witnesses including the victim who testified before the court.
“The perpetrator asked his victim to stay back and dismissed all pupils without explaining why she had to stay while other pupils were sent home. Although he did not use his manhood on the girl, he fingered her and, in legal parlance, this is tantamount to rape,” he explained.
Dayyabu said the judgment was passed in July this year after Jalaludeen pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy.
Previously in 2023, WikkiTimes reported that a high court judge in Bauchi sentenced Yusuf Boko to life imprisonment for raping a girl inside a mosque and two other men were handed down 35 years imprisonment each for culpable homicide and removing the private part of a teenage girl in Jama’are.
