Ondo Court Sentences Lecturer to Death by Hanging for Highway Robbery

An Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure has sentenced a lecturer at the College of Health Technology, Ijero-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Shittu Isiaka, to death by hanging for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

The presiding judge, Justice O. M. Adejumo, delivered the judgment after finding the defendant guilty on two counts bordering on conspiracy and armed robbery.

However, the court discharged and acquitted him on the third count of endangering life or health, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove the allegation beyond reasonable doubt.

Isiaka was first arraigned before the court on November 26, 2018, on a three-count charge of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery and endangering life.

According to the prosecution, the defendant and other suspects still at large, on July 5, 2017, at about 11 a.m., robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, of his Nissan Cabstar truck with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint along Ibuji on the Akure–Ilesha Expressway.

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Testifying before the court, the victim, Olowoyeye, said he knew the defendant prior to the incident.

He explained that the defendant and two others had hired him in Ilesa to convey cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for a fee of ₦20,000, of which ₦8,000 was paid upfront with a promise to pay the balance after the trip.

Olowoyeye said the situation changed when the men asked him to reverse the vehicle into a bush near a primary school at Ibuji.

He told the court that one of the passengers suddenly brought out a gun while the defendant sat beside him in the front seat.

The victim said the suspects dragged him out of the vehicle, collected the ignition key, his mobile phone and cash, tied his hands and legs and abandoned him in the bush.

He further alleged that the defendant injected him with an unknown substance before tying him to a tree.

Olowoyeye said he later managed to roll himself through the bush until he reached the highway where police officers rescued him and took him to the hospital.

According to him, he passed bloody urine for several days and spent about 15 days receiving treatment in hospital.

A police witness, Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, told the court that highway patrol officers brought the victim to the Igbara-Oke Police Station in a naked condition, after which he made a statement implicating the defendant.

During the trial, the defendant denied all the allegations, insisting that he had no involvement in the robbery.

He also denied injecting the victim with any substance, arguing that he was not a medical practitioner and had no licence to administer injections.

Isiaka further told the court that police investigators did not present any syringe or item allegedly used for the injection and that no medical report was tendered to prove that the complainant was injected with a poisonous substance.

In his ruling, Justice Adejumo held that the prosecution failed to establish the offence of endangering life as required under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act. CC