Delivering judgment on the case, Justice Omolara Adejumo convicted the lecturer, Shittu Isiaka, of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery, while acquitting him of a third charge of endangering life.
Isiaka was initially arraigned before the court on November 26, 2018, on a three-count charge bordering on conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery, and endangering life.
During the trial, the prosecution counsel, John Dada Joshua, told the court that the incident occurred on July 5, 2017, at about 11 a.m. along Ibuji on the Akure–Ilesha Expressway.
According to the prosecution, the defendant and accomplices still at large robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye, of his Nissan Cabstar vehicle (registration number XJ 214 KTU) at gunpoint.
While testifying before the court, Olowoyeye said he had known the defendant prior to the incident and that Isiaka, along with two others, hired him in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for ₦20,000.
According to the victim, the men paid ₦8,000 upfront and promised to pay the balance after the trip.
He said the situation became suspicious when the men asked him to reverse the vehicle into a bush near a primary school in Ibuji.
Olowoyeye told the court that one of the men sitting beside him suddenly pulled out a gun while the defendant sat next to him in the front seat.
“They dragged me out of the vehicle, collected the key, my phone and cash, tied my hands and legs and abandoned me in the bush,” he said.
The victim further alleged that the defendant injected him with a substance before tying him to a tree.
He said he later managed to roll himself through the bush until he reached the main road where police patrol officers rescued him and took him to a hospital.
According to Olowoyeye, he passed bloody urine for several days and spent about 15 days receiving medical treatment.
A prosecution witness, Police Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, told the court that highway patrol officers brought the victim naked to the Nigeria Police Force station in Igbara-Oke, where he made a statement implicating the defendant.
However, during his defence, Isiaka denied all the allegations.
He insisted he was not involved in the robbery and denied injecting the victim with any substance, arguing that he was neither a medical practitioner nor licensed to administer injections.
He also told the court that investigators did not produce any syringe or item allegedly used in the crime and that no medical report was tendered to support the victim’s claim.
In her judgment, Justice Adejumo held that the prosecution failed to prove the charge of endangering life beyond reasonable doubt as required under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.
The judge noted that there was no eyewitness account of the alleged injection and no medical report presented to support the claim of hospitalisation.
She ruled that relying solely on the testimonies of the victim and another witness without medical evidence would be unsafe and therefore discharged and acquitted the defendant on that count.
However, the court found that there was sufficient evidence linking Isiaka to the armed robbery.
Justice Adejumo subsequently convicted him for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery, sentencing him to life imprisonment for conspiracy and death by hanging for armed robbery.
“The sentence of the court upon you is that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead,” the judge ruled.
