A High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti has sentenced a 42-year old man to death by hanging for killing a traditional ruler, Onise of Odo-Oro Ekiti in the Ikole Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Oba Gbadebo Ibitoye Ogunsakin.
The convict, Omoniyi Ademola, who was arraigned on a one-count charge of murder stabbed the monarch to death on August 20th, 2018, at Odo-Oro Ekiti.
During the trial, one of the chiefs in the community who testified before the court said, ‘’we were at the palace on that day for Onise in Council meeting, around 7 am before the commencement of the meeting, Omoniyi Ademola Stephen entered the palace and sat on Kabiyesi’s seat but the Chiefs frowned at his action and drove him away.”
“After the meeting, the late Onise in the company of his male clerk was trekking back to the main palace, Ademola came out of his hiding and attacked Kabiyesi with a knife on the road and stabbed him to death, before that day he had been parading himself as the king of the town.”
To prove his case, the state counsel, Adegboyega Morakinyo, called five witnesses and tendered a medical report, statements of the convict, knife and rope among others as exhibits while the convict spoke in his own defence through his counsel Tope Salami and called no witnesses.
Morakinyo noted that the offence is “contrary to Section 316 and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code, Cap C16, Laws of Ekiti State of Nigeria, 2012.”
Delivering his verdict, Justice Olukayode Ogundana dispelled the notion that the defendant is insane and consequently pronounced the death verdict.
“The defendant is hereby sentenced to death and shall be hanged until he breathes his last. May the good Lord have mercy upon his soul,” he pronounced.
