ARISE News presenter Ojy Okpe appears to have made a significant mistake while discussing the case of Lami Samuel Dawa, the jailed Borno woman. Dawa’s 14-year prison sentence has sparked controversy over religious freedom in Nigeria.
While Ojy correctly reported the court’s finding that Dawa enticed a girl away from her parents’ custody, her introduction contained a detail that deserves closer scrutiny. She described the girl as a “teenage Muslim girl”. She failed to challenge a more consequential claim made by Borno State-based journalist and conflict reporter, Suleman Ayuba, that the person who converted to Christianity was an adult.
The court judgment tells a different story. It identifies the girl as a minor and records allegations that go beyond a conversation about religion. 
The discrepancy raises questions about how the case has been presented to the public, particularly as claims that the jailed Borno woman was punished simply for converting a Muslim girl to Christianity continue to shape the debate.
Lami Samuel Dawa: The mistake in ARISE News’ report
During the programme, Ojy Okpe said many Nigerians believed Dawa’s only crime was sharing her Christian faith with a teenage Muslim girl who later converted. She then explained that the Borno State High Court found Dawa guilty of enticing the girl away from her parents’ custody after she allegedly arranged her travel to Jos without their knowledge.
However, an external presenter offered a different account, describing the case as a Christian woman discussing with an “adult female Muslim” neighbour who subsequently converted to Christianity. The presenter added that this was all that happened before the woman was taken to court and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Ayo Mairo-Ese later reinforced that framing, arguing that nobody should be persecuted for their faith or for a conversation between “two consenting adults”. That is where the broadcast went wrong. The court judgment does not identify the girl as an adult.
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Court judgment shows the girl was a minor
The judgment delivered by Justice A.B. Kumalia of the Borno State High Court on May 5, 2026, records testimony from Aisha Kabiru Saleh, who said she was born in 2009. According to the judgment, Aisha was 13 when she first encountered Christianity and 16 during the trial.
This contradicts the external presenter’s description of her as an adult Muslim woman. It also undermines Ayo’s subsequent characterisation of the incident as a conversation between two consenting adults.
The distinction is crucial because the prosecution’s case concerned more than religious discussion. Aisha alleged that Dawa supplied her with a phone and SIM card, maintained contact with her and helped arrange aspects of her journey towards Jos. She also alleged that Dawa instructed her to disembark at Bauchi while people were searching for her and arranged for someone to receive her.
Dawa denied wrongdoing and maintained that she was helping the family. Nevertheless, the judge found sufficient evidence to convict her on charges involving enticement and the removal of the child from parental custody. The court record therefore does not support the claim that the case involved nothing more than a conversation between two adults.
Was Lami Samuel Dawa sentenced simply for converting a Muslim girl?
Another problem with the public discussion is the suggestion that Dawa was jailed solely for converting a Muslim girl to Christianity.
The court’s formal conclusion records convictions on three counts involving enticement, removal from lawful parental custody and deprivation of continued schooling. Dawa received sentences of 14 years, 14 years and 10 years on the respective counts. The judge ordered the sentences to run concurrently, meaning her total prison term is 14 years rather than 38 years.
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However, the judgment also refers to Aisha’s conversion to Christianity and her attendance at a Bible school when discussing the case.
The document contains an apparent inconsistency: one passage states that the prosecution proved counts two to five, while the formal conclusion lists convictions on counts two, three, and four. The separate conversion-related count is therefore not clearly resolved by the copy of the judgment available for this analysis.
This matters because neither extreme tells the full story. The judgment does not establish that Dawa was sentenced solely for evangelism, but it would also be inaccurate to claim that religion played no part in the court’s reasoning.
The religious-freedom concerns surrounding the jailed Borno woman deserve serious examination. However, those concerns should not be used to erase the custody-related allegations or misrepresent the age of the girl involved.
How Ojy Okpe missed an opportunity to correct the record
Ojy’s own summary was more accurate than the Ayuba’s account. She correctly named Justice Kumalia and explained that the court convicted Dawa of enticing the girl away from her parents’ custody. She also attributed the claim that the case was really about faith to advocates, rather than presenting it as an established judicial finding.
But Ojy did not correct the external presenter’s assertion that the girl was an adult. Nor did the subsequent discussion clarify that the court judgment identified Aisha as a minor. That omission matters because the adult framing became the basis for Ayo’s argument about two consenting adults. Viewers could later leave the programme with a misleading understanding of the case.
The broadcast also did not explain the judgment’s apparent inconsistency over the separate conversion-related charge, which complicates any definitive claim about whether Dawa was formally convicted on that count.
Lami Samuel Dawa: What the court record actually establishes
The available judgment supports three important conclusions:
- Aisha was a minor, contrary to the external presenter’s description of her as an adult.
- The court formally convicted Dawa on charges involving custody and schooling, rather than recording a straightforward conviction solely for sharing Christianity.
- The judge’s reasoning did refer to religious conversion, leaving legitimate questions about the relationship between child-protection law and religious freedom.
These distinctions matter in a case that has attracted strong reactions from religious groups and advocates.
The controversy should not be reduced to the claim that the jailed Borno woman was simply punished for converting a Muslim girl. Neither should the religious-freedom questions be dismissed without examining the judgment’s reasoning and the legal issues raised by the case.
Ojy’s summary captured the court’s central custody finding, but the programme failed to correct the external presenter’s clear factual error about the girl’s age. That is the important mistake in the broadcast, and one that deserves attention alongside the misleading claims circulating about why Lami Samuel Dawa was jailed.
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