Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
A High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti has sentenced a man, Mr. Efe Efi to a ten-year jail term for unlawful possession of firearm.
However, in the case with registration number HAD/10c/2018, the court freed Efi on the other two charges – attempted murder and robbery – owing to lack of evidence against the accused person.
According to the charges preferred against the accused person by the Department of Public Prosecution, Efi was accused and charged for attempted murder and robbery after he was arrested at Moferere area of Ado Ekiti on October 27, 2016.
Delivering his judgement on Wednesday, Justice Abiodun Adesodun found the accused person guilty of illegal possession of firearm, but was freed on other two charges.
Convicting the accused person, Justice Adesodun said: “A case of unlawful possession of firearm had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution was able to establish the elements needed to link the accused person with the crime and he is accordingly sentenced to ten years imprisonment but the offender being a first offender, is given a sum of N20,000 as option of fine.”
On the attempted murder and robbery charges, Justice Adesodun said: “Ingredients of attempted murder and robbery could not be substantiated against the accused person; you are accordingly discharged and acquitted”.
During the trial, the prosecution counsel, Mr. L.E. Ojo from the DPP office called a witness, while the counsel to the defendant, Barr. Owoseeni Ajayi, called no witness
Ojo also tendered the statement of the accused person as exhibit.
The convict was said to have made spirited attempt to rob a man, Adewumi Osasona, an okada rider and student of Ekiti State University, who conveyed him from Ijigbo to Moferere of his motorcycle and was arrested by residents after other accomplice, who shot the victim had fled.
When the accused person was said to have got to Moferere, he tied the plaintiff with a rope while a man who emerged from a nearby bush pointed a pistol at the motorcyclist and asked him to surrender the motorbike.
After shooting into the air, the okada man was said to have resisted while the second person, who was not available for prosecution shot the victim and this propped him to raise the alarm before residents trooped out to arrest the convicted person while the other accomplice fled the scene.