Justice Jane Inyang of the Federal High Court sitting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, has sentenced Yinusa Dalhiru to 26 years imprisonment for abducting then 14-year-old teenage girl, Ese Oruru, from her home in Bayelsa state to Kano state where he got married to her and impregnated her.
Ese made news in 2015 after the story of her abduction by Yinusa was widely reported. Yinusa had met the 14 -year-old Ese at her mother’s shop where he and his peers go to buy food. He abducted and took her to Kano on August 12th, 2015 where he forcefully married her and had her name changed to Aisha after she was converted to a Muslim.
After months of outcry from her parents and Human rights activists, she was returned to Bayelsa in March 2016, pregnant with a child. She was delivered of her baby girl on May 26th, 2016. Ese in an interview said she did not know how she followed him to Kano. Yinusa was arrested and arraigned in court on charges bordering on child trafficking, child abuse, rape, kidnap, infringement of right of religion, and holding a person against their will. After four years of litigation, Justice Inyang on Thursday morning May 21, convicted him and sentenced him to 26 years in prison.
