The Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Lawal Pedro, SAN, has again addressed circulating online claims suggesting that actor Olanrewaju James, widely known as Baba Ijesha, was exonerated by the Court of Appeal. Pedro firmly rejected the reports, stressing that they bear no resemblance to the actual court record.
In a statement to journalists on Sunday, he described the trending posts as “false, misleading and irresponsible,” noting that they recklessly distort the outcome of a long and well-documented legal process. The misleading narrative, he explained, originated from a social media post shared by actor Yomi Fabiyi and later echoed by an online publication.
Pedro emphasised that “no such clearance occurred at any stage of the judicial process,” challenging the claim that the appellate court had absolved Baba Ijesha or dismissed the charges as unfounded.
According to him, the factual position remains unchanged: on July 14, 2022, the Lagos State High Court convicted Baba Ijesha for sexual assault and indecent treatment of a child relating to an incident in 2021, issuing concurrent sentences of five and three years.
He noted that while the Court of Appeal’s judgment of June 28, 2024, overturned convictions tied to alleged offences from 2013 and 2014, the same ruling explicitly upheld the 2021 conviction and sentence.
The Attorney-General further explained that attempts to challenge the appellate ruling at the Supreme Court proved unsuccessful. The first appeal was struck out on May 29, 2025, for incompetence, and a subsequent application seeking leave to file a new appeal was dismissed on October 9, 2025. These decisions left the appellate court’s affirmation of the 2021 conviction fully intact.
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Pedro maintained that Baba Ijesha regained his freedom solely due to completing his custodial term. “Mr. Olanrewaju James was not cleared of the offences of sexual assault and indecent treatment of a child,” he stated.
He urged Lagos residents to ignore the circulating claims and warned that any individual or platform continuing to promote the falsehood could face prosecution under Section 39 of the Lagos Criminal Law, which criminalizes the publication of false information intended to incite fear or alarm.
Pedro reiterated the state government’s ongoing commitment to protecting minors, upholding valid convictions, and promoting accurate reporting of judicial outcomes.