CAPE TOWN - Four Nigerians convicted of murder were ordered to be hanged by an Ekiti State high court.
According to the Guardian Nigeria, the four accused, two men and two women, were convicted of murdering a pensioner with whom they lived in 2017 and who allegedly ran a brothel.
Rashidate Abdul, 37, Oluwatosin Akarakiri, 32, Abdulrasheed Mutairu, 22, and Iyoriochile Eromoina, 18, were charged with the murder of 70-year-old Samuel Oloyede and made their first court appearance on February 12, 2018, pleading not guilty.
Ekiti State high court judge Justice Oluwatoyin Abodunde said the state had proven beyond reasonable doubt that the accused were guilty of murder.
“I am persuaded that in the instant case, the prosecution has proved the ingredients of murder beyond a reasonable doubt by convincing and compelling qualitative unbroken circumstantial evidence and I so hold.
“Therefore, for causing the death of Samuel Oloyede, in contravention of section 316 of the Criminal Code, Cap C 16, Laws of Ekiti State, Nigeria, and by the provisions of Section 301 (2)(2) of the Ekiti State of Nigeria, Criminal Justice Law, 2014, the sentence of the court upon the four accused persons is that you be hanged by the neck until you be dead and may God have mercy on your souls,” Justice Abodunde decreed.
According to the indictment, on April 5, 2017, at Odo Owa Ekiti in the Ijero local government area, the group conspired to kill Oloyede.
According to the publication, witnesses at the trial testified that the deceased operated a brothel and the accused all lived in his house.
The witnesses testified that there was a misunderstanding between the group and the deceased regarding payments and how profits would be shared. The witnesses claimed that when the group left the home, the deceased was missing for four days only for his body to be found hidden under a heap of clothes.