The Akure Division of the Ondo State High Court has sentenced a lecturer, Shittu Isiaka, at the College of Health Technology, Ijero-Ekiti, Ekiti State, to death by hanging for armed robbery.
Justice Omolara Adejumo delivered the judgement after finding the lecturer guilty of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery.
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.
However, the court discharged and acquitted him on the third count of endangering life, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove the allegation beyond reasonable doubt.
The prosecution counsel, John Dada Joshua, told the court that the incident occurred on 5 July 2017 at about 11 a.m. along Ibuji on the Akure-Ilesha Expressway.
Joshua said that the defendant and other accomplices still at large robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, of his Nissan Cabstar vehicle with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint.
While testifying, Olowoyeye told the court that he knew the defendant before the incident and that he and two others hired him in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for N20,000.
According to him, the men paid N8,000 upfront and promised to pay the balance after the trip.
He said the situation turned suspicious when they asked him to reverse the vehicle into a bush near a primary school at Ibuji.
Olowoyeye said one of the men sitting beside him suddenly produced a gun while the defendant sat close to him in the front seat.
He told the court that the men dragged him out of the vehicle, collected the key, his phone and cash, tied his hands and legs and abandoned him in the bush.
The victim further alleged that the defendant injected him with a substance before tying him to a tree.
He said he later rolled himself through the bush until he reached the main road where police patrol officers rescued him and took him to a hospital.
Olowoyeye said he passed bloody urine for days and spent about 15 days receiving treatment.
A witness, Police Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, told the court that highway patrol officers brought the victim naked to the Igbara-Oke Police Station, where he made a statement implicating the defendant.
(The Nation)
