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.

Presiding judge Justice O. M. Adejumo delivered the judgment after a protracted trial in which the court examined the roles allegedly played by Isiaka in the violent robbery of a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, along the Akure–Ilesha Expressway.

Isiaka was arraigned on a three-count charge of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery and endangering life. While the court convicted him on the first two counts, it discharged and acquitted him on the third, holding that prosecutors failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he endangered the victim’s life through an alleged injection with a harmful substance.

The prosecution told the court that on July 5, 2017, at about 11 a.m., Isiaka and accomplices still at large hired Olowoyeye in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for an agreed fee of N20,000. After paying part of the fare, they allegedly lured him to a bush path near a primary school at Ibuji, where the robbery took place.

Testifying, Olowoyeye said he knew the defendant before the incident and had no reason to suspect foul play when he accepted the job. He recounted how one of the men in the front seat suddenly pulled a gun, while Isiaka sat beside him. The men allegedly dragged him out of the vehicle, seized his keys, phone and money, tied his hands and legs and abandoned him in the bush.

The driver further alleged that Isiaka injected him with an unknown substance before tying him to a tree. He said he later managed to roll through the bush to the main road, where police officers found him and took him to hospital. He claimed he passed blood in his urine and remained on admission for about 15 days.

A police witness, 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 Isiaka.

In his defence, Isiaka denied any involvement in the robbery and rejected the allegation that he injected the victim, arguing that he was not a medical practitioner and had no access to injections. He also pointed out that investigators did not tender any syringe or medical report to support the claim.

Justice Adejumo agreed that the allegation of injecting the victim was not sufficiently proved, noting the absence of eyewitnesses and medical evidence. The court held that it would be unsafe to rely solely on the testimonies of the victim and another witness on that count and resolved the doubt in favour of the defendant.

However, the judge found that the prosecution had established the offences of conspiracy and armed robbery, relying on the victim’s identification of Isiaka, the circumstances of the hire, and the sequence of events leading to the theft of the vehicle and personal belongings.

Consequently, the court sentenced Isiaka to life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and to death by hanging for armed robbery. Pronouncing the capital sentence, Justice Adejumo ordered that the convict “be hanged by the neck until he is dead,” adding a customary prayer that God have mercy on his soul.

The state was represented by prosecutor John Dada Joshua, while O. I. Tiwo appeared for the defence.