An Ekiti State High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti has sentenced 42-year-old Omoniyi Ademola Stephen to death by hanging, for killing a monarch.
The convict was arraigned on one count charge of murder, contrary to Section 316 and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code, Cap C16, Laws of Ekiti State of Nigeria, 2012.
The charge reads, Omoniyi Ademola Stephen, on the 20th day of August 2018, at Odo Oro Ekiti in Ikole Ekiti Judicial Division, murdered His Royal Majesty, Oba Gbadebo Ibitoye Olowoselu ll, the Onise of Odo-Oro Ekiti in Ikole Local Government Area of Ekiti State.
One of the chiefs 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, 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 and stabbed him to death. Before that day, he had been parading himself as the king of the town,” he concluded.
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 Amr Salami, and called no witnesses.
In his judgment, Justice Olukayode Ogundana dispelled the notion that the defendant is insane, “consequently, the defendant, Omoniyi Ademola Stephen, is, hereby, sentenced to death and shall be hanged until he breathes his last. May the good Lord have mercy upon his soul.”
