justice Muhammad Liman of the Federal High Court in Lagos, on Friday, convicted and sentenced a cosmetic surgeon, Dr Anuoluwapo Adepoju, to one-year imprisonment for a failed plastic surgery on Nneka Onwuzuligbo in 2020.
The judge handed down the verdict on the convicted doctor, after analysing all the submissions of both the prosecution and the lawyer of the deceased.
Justice Liman, however, ordered the convict to pay the sum of N100,000, in lieu of the jail term.
The convict was arraigned before the court alongside her clinic, MedContour Services Limited, by the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission, on five counts bordering on a refusal to honour an invitation for an investigation into post-body surgery complications, as well as the production of investigation documents.
She was re-arraigned on July 17, 2020, alongside her medical outfit, before Justice Liman.
She was re-arraigned on July 17, 2020, alongside her medical outfit, before Justice Liman.
Adepoju pleaded not guilty to the charges and was granted bail on self-recognisance.
After the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, the convict decided not to open her defence and she filed a no-case-submission on grounds that no case had been established against her by the prosecution, to warrant her entering a defence.
But Justice Liman on April 7, 2022, dismissed the convict’s no-case submission and ruled that the evidence presented before the court by the prosecution satisfied the elements of the criminal charges pending against her.
On May 5, 2023, the convict, opened her case and she was the sole witness, in her defence.
The convict was led in evidence and also cross-examined after which the court adjourned the case until June 21, 2023, for the adoption of written addresses.
In the five counts brought against Adepoju and her medical outfit, the prosecution alleged that the convict failed to appear before the FCCPC concerning an investigation into a reported failed plastic surgery.
She was alleged to have failed to show up in compliance with the commission’s summons dated April 15, 2020.
The prosecution also alleged that without sufficient cause, the convict refused and failed to produce documents that she was required to produce in compliance with the commission’s notice of investigation dated April 14, 2020.
The convict was alleged to have prevented and obstructed the commission from carrying out its investigation into the said issue.
The offences committed are punishable under sections 11(1)(a), 33(1)(a), 110, 113(1)(a) and 159(4) of the FCCPC Act, 2018.
The management of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, had urged the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigation Panel to investigate the alleged professional misconduct of Adepoju.
According to LUTH, Adepoju continued to perform surgeries even though her facility was sealed off by the Lagos State Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency.
In an affidavit attached to the petition, the hospital alleged that Adepoju referred the late Nneka from her facility to LUTH on January 3, 2019, on the pretext that she was being referred from the General Hospital, Odan, Lagos Island.
The victim, according to the affidavit deposed by a consultant surgeon, Prof Andrew Ugburo, was presented to LUTH with severe respiratory distress and septicaemia with infected surgical wounds.
Madukwe B. Nwabuisi is an accomplished journalist renown for his fearless reporting style and extensive expertise in the field. He is an investigative journalist, who has established himself as a kamikaze reporter.