By our reporter 15.5.2026
Two security guards identified as James Sule (30) and Adamu Yau (25) will spend their rest of their lives in jail for raping a six-year-old girl over a period of six years.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) secured the convictions after successfully prosecuting the suspects at the High Court 46 Apo Abuja.
Presiding judge Justice S.M. Mayana on Friday handed the sentence without an option of fine in the three-year trial of the two men. One other individual who participated in the sexual abuse of the minor who is now 16 years old remains at large.
NAPTIP in line with the provisions of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2025 had brought the case against the suspects in 2023.
According to a statement by NAPTIP the victim began to suffer the ordeal when she was six years old in 2016. This was when the victim’s grandmother invited Sule who was their security guard at that time to come into their residence at Penthouse Estate, Lugbe, Abuja to fix a broken toilet.
While in the toilet Sule lured the victim into the same toilet and forced himself on her. Afterwards, he brought out a knife and threatened her not to tell anyone. This marked the beginning of repeated sexual abuse, fear, pain, and trauma that continued for six years.
NAPTIP added that in a bid to share the sexual pleasure with his friends, the convict, later recruited two other guards in the Estate, Yau, who is the second convict, and one Muhammed, now at large. Together, they had sex with the victim whenever opportunities arose, threatening to kill and wipe out her entire family if she spoke to anyone about their act with her.
“The victim endured this traumatic abuse in silence for about six years. Over time, the victim’s parents noticed troubling changes in her behaviour. She became visibly agitated whenever Sule entered the house and refused to let him escort her to school or pick her up from the school bus.”
Her parents became worried about her strange behavior and later took her for spiritual counseling and that was where the victim opened up to the abuse she suffered from the three men, particularly whenever she returned from school before her parents arrived home.
The horrified parents immediately reported the matter to the Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH), which subsequently transferred the case to NAPTIP. The convicts were immediately arrested. Following further investigation, charges were filed in court on 9 February 2023. Sule and Yau were arraigned on 23 October 2023 on two counts under Section 1(1), punishable under Section 1(2), and Section 5 of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015. Both pleaded not guilty, and the trial commenced on 5 December 2023.”