An Ekiti-based lecturer, Shittu Isiaka, has been sentenced to death by hanging after a court found him guilty of armed robbery.
Gatekeepers News reports that the judgment was delivered by Justice Omolara Adejumo of the Court of Appeal sitting in Akure, Ondo State, who held that the prosecution proved the charges of conspiracy and armed robbery against the defendant.
Isiaka, who was identified as a lecturer at the College of Health Technology in Ijero-Ekiti, was prosecuted over a robbery incident that occurred on July 5, 2017, along the Ibuji axis of the Akure–Ilesha expressway.
According to the prosecution counsel, John Joshua, the convict and other accomplices who are still at large robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, at gunpoint and dispossessed him of his Nissan Cabstar truck with registration number XJ 214 KTU.
Testifying before the court, Olowoyeye said he had known Isiaka before the incident. He explained that the lecturer and two other men hired him in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke and paid N8,000 upfront out of an agreed N20,000 fare.
The driver told the court that he became suspicious when the passengers instructed him to divert the vehicle into a bush path near a primary school at Ibuji. According to him, one of the men suddenly produced a gun while Isiaka sat beside him in the front seat.
He said the attackers dragged him out of the vehicle, seized the keys, his phone and cash, and tied his hands and legs before abandoning him in the bush. Olowoyeye further told the court that he was injected with a substance before being tied to a tree.
The victim said he later managed to roll through the bush until he reached the highway where police patrol officers rescued him and took him to a hospital. He added that he passed blood in his urine for several days and spent about 15 days receiving medical treatment.
A police witness, Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, testified that officers on highway patrol brought the victim to the Igbara-Oke police station where he made a statement identifying Isiaka as one of the attackers.
After reviewing the evidence presented during the trial, the court convicted Isiaka and ordered that he “be hanged by the neck until he is dead” for the armed robbery offence.
