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 after finding him guilty of armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

Justice O. M. Adejumo delivered the judgment after ruling that the prosecution had proved two of the three charges against the defendant beyond reasonable doubt.

Isiaka, however, was discharged and acquitted on the third charge of endangering life or health after the court held that the prosecution failed to establish the allegation as required by law.

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

According to the prosecution, the incident occurred on July 5, 2017, at about 11 a.m. along the Akure–Ilesha Expressway near Ibuji. Isiaka and accomplices said to be at large allegedly robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, of his Nissan Cabstar truck with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint.

Testifying before the court, Olowoyeye said he was hired by the defendant and two other men in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for a fee of N20,000. He told the court that the men initially paid him N8,000 and promised to settle the balance after the trip.

The driver said the situation turned suspicious when the passengers asked him to reverse the vehicle into a bush path near a primary school at Ibuji. According to him, one of the men seated beside him suddenly produced a gun while the defendant was seated in the front.

Olowoyeye alleged that the men dragged him out of the vehicle, seized the key, his phone, and money, tied his hands and legs, and abandoned him in the bush.

He further claimed that the defendant injected him with an unknown substance before tying him to a tree. The victim told the court he later managed to roll himself through the bush to the roadside, where he was rescued by police officers and taken to hospital.

The driver said he spent about 15 days in hospital and experienced complications, including passing blood in his urine after the incident.

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

During the trial, Isiaka denied all the allegations. He told the court he was not involved in the robbery and denied administering any injection to the victim, noting that he was not a medical practitioner and had no licence to obtain or administer injections.

He also argued that police investigators failed to produce any syringe or other item allegedly used during the crime and did not present a medical report to support the claim that the victim was injected with a harmful substance.

In his ruling, Justice Adejumo held that the prosecution failed to prove the charge of endangering life beyond reasonable doubt as required under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.

The judge noted that there was no eyewitness evidence confirming the alleged injection and no medical report to support the victim’s claim of hospitalisation resulting from it. The court ruled that it would be unsafe to rely solely on testimonies without supporting medical evidence and resolved the doubt in favour of the defendant on that count.

However, the court held that sufficient evidence linked Isiaka to the armed robbery.

Justice Adejumo consequently convicted the defendant on the counts of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery. He sentenced Isiaka to life imprisonment for conspiracy and death by hanging for the armed robbery offence.

Delivering the final pronouncement, the judge declared that the convict “be hanged by the neck until he is dead,” adding a prayer that God would have mercy on his soul.

The prosecution was led by John Dada Joshua, while O. I. Tiwo represented the defendant.