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 d3ath by hanging for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Justice O. M. Adejumo delivered the judgment after finding the defendant guilty on two counts of conspiracy and armed robbery.
However, the court discharged and acquitted him on the third count bordering on 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.
The prosecution told the court that on July 5, 2017, at about 11 a.m., the defendant and others still at large robbed one Olatunji Olowoyeye of his Nissan Cabstar vehicle with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint along Ibuji on the Akure–Ilesha Expressway.
Testifying before the court, the victim, Olowoyeye, said he was a commercial driver who knew the defendant.
He explained that the defendant and two others hired him in Ilesa to convey cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for the sum of N20,000.
According to him, the men paid N8,000 and promised to pay the balance after the trip.
He said trouble started when they asked him to reverse his vehicle into a bush near a primary school at Ibuji.
Olowoyeye told the court that one of the men sitting beside him suddenly brought out a gun while the defendant sat close to him in the front seat.
He said the men dragged him out of the vehicle, collected the key, his phone and money, tied his hands and legs and left him in the bush.
The victim further alleged that the defendant injected him with a substance before tying him to a tree.
He added that he later rolled himself through the bush until he reached the main road, where police officers rescued him and took him to the hospital.
He claimed he passed bloody urine for days and spent about 15 days in the hospital after the incident.
A police witness, Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, also testified that the victim was brought to the Igbara-Oke Police Station naked by highway patrol officers, after which he made a statement implicating the defendant.
During the trial, the defendant denied the allegations, insisting he was not involved 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 obtain or administer injections.
Isiaka further told the court that police investigators did not present any syringe or other items allegedly used in the crime.
He added that no medical report was presented to prove that the complainant was injected with a poisonous substance.
In its judgment, the court held that the prosecution failed to prove the offence of endangering life as required by Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.
Justice Adejumo noted that there was no eyewitness account of the alleged injection and no medical report to support the victim’s claim of hospitalisation.
The court also held that it would be unsafe to rely solely on the testimonies of the victim and another witness without supporting medical evidence.
Consequently, the court ruled that doubts created by the evidence must be resolved in favour of the defendant and therefore acquitted him on the third count.
However, the court found sufficient evidence linking the defendant to the robbery.
Justice Adejumo therefore convicted Isiaka for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy and d3ath by hanging for the armed robbery offence.
The judge declared that the sentence of the court upon the convict was that he “be hanged by the neck until he is dead,” praying that God would have mercy on his soul.
The prosecution was represented by John Dada Joshua, while O. I. Tiwo appeared for the defendant.
