Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of an Ikeja High Court
yesterday, sentenced to death by hanging, a 27-year old man, Oluwaseun Oladapo
for the murder of Mr. Kunle Fadipe, a Lagos based human rights lawyer.
The judge sentenced Oladapo to death after finding him
guilty on a five-count charge of murder, armed robbery and assault occasioning
harm.
Justice Ipaye in her in a two-hour judgment said, “I
pronounce you guilty and sentenced to death.
“On count one, you Oluwaseun Oladapo, is to be hung by
the neck till you are dead.
“On count three, you Oluwaseun Oladapo, is to be hung
by the neck till you are dead.
“On count four, you Oluwaseun Oladapo is sentenced to
three years in prison.
“On count five, you Oluwaseun Oladapo is sentenced to
three years in prison.
“The terms of imprisonment of counts three, four and
five is that they should run consecutively.
“This is the judgment of the court.”
According to the prosecution led by Mr. Adeniji Kazeem,
the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and Mrs. Idowu
Alakija, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Oladapo, allegedly murdered
the lawyer at 3am on July 4, 2014 at his residence located at No. 1 Harmony
Estate, Ifako-Ijaiye, Iju, Lagos.
The convict was also charged with the murder of Mrs.
Cecelia Owolabi, the mother-in-law to the late Fadipe, but the charge of murder
was commuted to assault occasioning harm by the court.
Justice Ipaye explained that the reason why the murder
charge of Owolabi was rejected was because the prosecution failed to prove a
direct link between the actions of the Oladapo and the death of Madam Cecelia
Owolabi.
“He is however, found guilty of the assault occasioning
harm of Madam Cecelia Owolabi.”
During the trial, the wife of the late lawyer, Mrs.
Kemi Fadipe, in her testimony gave a graphic narration of the events of the
night of the murder.
Kemi, a school proprietress said: “My husband came in
late from the office at 10pm and he was preparing for a flight to Abuja the
following day, we both had retired to our bedroom.
“Our home is a five – bedroom duplex and there was no
electricity that night, the home was well lit because the generator was on.
“At 11.45pm, power was restored and my son Folahanmi
went to put off the generator, a few minutes after he left, he came running
upstairs screaming for help.
“He had a stab wound on his head and was being pursued
by the defendant who was armed with a knife.
“The commotion alerted my husband and I and we
rushed to the ante-room upstairs where we saw the defendant and Folahanmi.
“The defendant was saying that someone had to die today
and demanded N500,000, threatening us that members of his gang had surrounded
the house.
“We knelt down to plead with him and my husband
instructed me to get a white envelope containing cash from the jacket of his
suit.
“When the envelope was handed over to the defendant, he
was dissatisfied and demanded for laptops and phones and we told him those
items were downstairs.
“He for no reason, lunged at Folahanmi with a knife and
my husband stepped in to save him and he was stabbed in his neck and his
chest.”
Kemi said after her husband was stabbed, Oladapo ran
downstairs where he unfortunately encountered her mother.
“My mother came out from her bedroom downstairs to
investigate the source of the commotion and the defendant ran into her,
stabbing her in the chest.”
“I, the maid and my sister struggled with him in the
living room downstairs, he was hit on the head with a stabiliser but he was
behaving in a wild and crazed manner and very strong and hard to subdue.
“My husband and Folahanmi ran out to get help but my
husband collapsed in the premises.
“Folahanmi got help from the security guard of the
estate who subdued the defendant by shooting him with a gun.”
She said that Fadipe was rushed to a hospital where he
gave up the ghost at 4am, her mother who came to Lagos from Ibadan for an eye
operation was discharged from the hospital but died in Ibadan from the shock
and trauma of the incident two weeks later.
“My son Folahanmi, a student of one of the tertiary
institutions in the country, lost a year of school due to the trauma of the
head and chest injuries he sustained during the attack,” Kemi said.
Miss Biola Owolabi, the sister-in-law to the late
lawyer in her testimony during the trial attested to the strength of Oladapo.
“He scaled the fence of the house and lay in wait at
the generator house where he threatened and attacked Folahanmi whom had come to
put off the generator.
“It was difficult to subdue him during the frenzied
attack, he was like a man possessed, he had the strength of 10 men, everyone
sustained injuries” she said.
A pathologist, Dr. Sunday Soyemi in his
testimony, revealed the cause of Fadipe’s death.
“The cause of death was rapid and severe blood loss
caused by the severe slice of the left jugular vein,” Soyemi said
Mr. Bamidele Sanni, a security guard at the Harmony
Estate had testified during the trial that he shot Oladapo on the leg to
incapacitate him.
Oladapo had in his own testimonies in Yoruba language,
denied committing the offence.
He said on the night of the murder, he left a viewing
centre to go to his home and he had to take a shortcut via Harmony Estate.
“When I got to the Harmony Estate, an altercation
occurred between me the security guard and four men, they beat me up, subdued
me and shot at my leg.
“I fainted and woke up in the hospital, I fainted again
and woke up four days later at the police station,” he said.
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