Shittu Isiaka, a lecturer at the College of Health Technology, Ijero-Ekiti, Ekiti State, has been sentenced to death by hanging by an Ondo State High Court in Akure for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Justice O. M. Adejumo issued the decision after finding the defendant guilty of two counts of conspiracy and armed robbery.
However, the court discharged and acquitted him on the third count of endangering life or health, stating that the prosecution failed to prove the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.
On November 26, 2018, Isiaka was arraigned on three counts 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.