A legal practitioner Dr Charles Omole has said the likeliness of COZA Pastor, Biodun Fatoyinbo being convicted is very slim.
In a post he made on social media, the Judge wrote that before any conviction could be made, there must be evidence of the crime being committed or the accused admitting to committing the crime.
Read his full post below:
ON DAKOLO v FATOYINBO – A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE I once had a Domestic Violence case in which wife alleged the husband punched her with boxing gloves during a fight. She presented pictures of her battered face in court. But the Husband denied beating her & that she must have been beaten by someone else or fallen & trying to incriminate him.
There is no history of DV prior to this. I believed d wife, but needed the Crown to give me the evidence to convict. The Prosecution failed. The boxing gloves recovered from the house was misplaced by the police & No witnesses presented.
So I had to let the husband go. Cases are about evidence and not morality or feral outrage. This leads to me to the Dakolo case in Nigeria. It is possible to do the right thing in the wrong way. Both sides of the polarised Dakolo v Fatoyinbo saga are being blinded by their biases.
It is the duty of the Police to investigate Both sides of any allegations. First, headline today says “Police Storm Dakolo residence”. Then the story said there were 3 officers. Can that really be said to be “Storming”? With the headline.
I was expecting to read at least a dozen officers were there. Needless sensation does not build legal culpability. Secondly; folks said Fatoyinbo has not been questioned on Dokolo’s allegations. How do you know that? He could have chosen to be quiet about his own questioning.
He could have chosen not to publicise his own visit to the police. If the Dakolo’s have not raised alarm on SM, they too could have been questioned without anyone being aware. Clearly police could simply have invited them for questioning.
Those who allege a crime as serious as Rape need to be treated with more respect & sensitivity. A source told me that the Investigation team had actually taken Fatoyinbo’s side of the story & needed to take Dakolo’s too. And bcos the team are in Abuja, they felt the Dakolo’s should be interviewed by same team.
But the police team could easily have visited lagos to interview the Dakolos. Trying to ship them to Abuja was unnecessary and insensitive. Moral outrage is one thing; Legal culpability is another matter.
If Mrs Dakolo has said the alleged s*x was consensual, police will not be involved in this case; although the moral outrage will still persist bcos a Pastor is involved. So we need to understand that these are different standards. Allowing moral outrage to shape legal and victimology investigations is unwise.
The Police need to be careful & even-handed in this case. But they also cannot also be prevented from doing their job by a moral mob who have concluded guilt without evidential analysis. Global evidence shows that if there are 10 allegations of historical nature against a person; usually 3 will be false, 3 will be True and 4 will be exaggerated.
An accused may be Innocent of a particular allegation; but could be guilty of others. In the UK, a man is currently being prosecuted for making many false historical s*xual abuse allegations against many people
But some of the people he made allegation against have also been convicted of other charges based on allegations of other victims. So a person may be Innocent of a particular allegation but guilty of other similar crimes. Things are more nuanced that many appreciate.
Morality must not be confused with legality. I have had to let go accused that I suspected were guilty bcos prosecution could not provide adequate evidence that is “beyond reasonable doubt”. The criminal evidential standard is very high indeed. So gut instincts is not evidence
So details do matter. From what I have gathered so far; unless Fatoyinbo admits guilt; I do not see how he can be criminally convicted of raping Mrs Dakolo almost 2decades ago. The evidence is just not there. Oral Evidence of siblings and family members is discounted heavily in court bcos they are seen as biased. They are perceived as usually lacking objectivity.
So I can safely predict that there will be no criminal conviction in this case, unless accused admit guilt. If all we are dealing with is just moral outrage, then I can understand the use of SM. But if criminal culpability is what is being sought; a SM war is the wrong way to go
In the end, legal proceedings are not so much about Truth; but about what can be proven in court. No evidence means no conviction. It is that simple. Most of those who claim they want justice for Mrs Dakolo are actually going about it the wrong way and harming her case with
