Ondo High Court Condemns Ekiti Lecturer to Death for Armed Robbery and Conspiracy

A Lecturer at the Ekiti State College of Health Technology, Ijero Ekiti, has been sentenced to death by hanging after an Ondo State High Court in Akure found him guilty of conspiracy and armed robbery.

Justice O. M. Adejumo delivered the judgment against Shittu Isiaka, ruling that the prosecution had proven both charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The court, however, discharged and acquitted him on a third count of endangering life, holding that the allegation was not sufficiently established under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.

Isiaka was first arraigned on 26 November 2018, on a three count charge relating to an incident on 5 July 2017, along the Akure Ilesha Expressway. According to the prosecution, the lecturer and two other suspects still at large robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, of his Nissan Cabstar truck with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint near Ibuji.

Olowoyeye told the court that Isiaka and two other men had hired him in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara Oke for a fee of ₦20,000, paying ₦8,000 upfront. He testified that when the passengers asked him to reverse into a bush path near a primary school in Ibuji, one of them produced a gun while the defendant sat beside him in the front seat.

The driver said the suspects dragged him from the truck, seized the ignition key, his mobile phone, and cash, before tying his hands and legs and abandoning him in the bush. He further alleged that the defendant injected him with an unknown substance and tied him to a tree, after which he rolled himself to the highway, where police officers found him without clothing and took him to the hospital. He told the court he passed bloody urine for several days and spent approximately 15 days receiving treatment.

Isiaka denied all involvement, stating he was not a medical practitioner and that no syringe or medical evidence was tendered to support the injection allegation. The court nonetheless upheld the conviction on the two principal charges and imposed the death sentence in accordance with the law.