By: Sunday Ameh
An Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure has sentenced a lecturer at the College of Health Technology, Ijero‑Ekiti in 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 the defendant on a 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 incident occurred on July 5, 2017, at about 11 a.m. along the Akure–Ilesha Expressway near Ibuji. The defendant and other accomplices said to be at large were accused of robbing a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, of his Nissan Cabstar truck with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint.
Testifying before the court, the victim said the defendant and two other men had hired him in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara‑Oke for N20,000. He told the court that the men paid N8,000 in advance and promised to pay the balance after the trip.
Olowoyeye said the situation changed when the passengers asked him to reverse the vehicle into a bush near a primary school in Ibuji. He told the court that one of the men sitting beside him suddenly produced a gun while the defendant sat close to him in the front seat.
According to him, the suspects dragged him out of the vehicle, seized the keys, his phone and money, tied his hands and legs and abandoned him in the bush.
The victim also alleged that the defendant injected him with a substance before tying him to a tree. He said he later struggled through the bush until he reached the main road where police officers rescued him and took him to hospital.
He added that he passed bloody urine for several days and spent about 15 days in the hospital receiving treatment.
A police witness, Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, testified that highway patrol officers later brought the victim to the Igbara‑Oke Police Station in a distressed condition, where he made a statement implicating the defendant.
During the trial, Isiaka denied the allegations and maintained that he had no involvement in the robbery. He also denied injecting the victim, arguing that he was not a medical practitioner and had no licence to administer injections.
The defendant further told the court that investigators failed to present any syringe or medical item allegedly used in the crime and did not tender a medical report to prove that the complainant was injected with a harmful substance.
In its judgment, the court held that the prosecution failed to prove the offence of endangering life as required under 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 claim that the victim was hospitalised due to the injection.
The judge 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 held that sufficient evidence linked the defendant to the robbery and subsequently convicted him of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery.
Isiaka was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy and death by hanging for the armed robbery offence.
Justice Adejumo declared that the sentence of the court upon the convict was that he “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 appeared for the defendant.
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