The court has sentenced a BRT driver to death by hanging over Bamise’s murder.
Glamtush reports that the Lagos High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square has convicted and sentenced to death, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) driver, Andrew Ominikoron, for the murder of a 22-year-old fashion designer, Bamise Ayanwola.
In a judgment that lasted over two and half hours, Justice Serifat Sonaike held that the prosecution, the Lagos State Government, successfully proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the offence.
The judge held, “that for the death of Oluwabamise Ayanwola, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy upon you.”
He, however, pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The convict was tried on a five-count charge, including conspiracy, rape, murder, and sexual assault, brought against him by the Lagos State Government.
According to the charges, the incident occurred on February 26, 2022, around 7 pm, near the Lekki-Ajah Conservation Centre, Lekki-Ajah Expressway, Lagos.
The prosecution said that Ominikoron had forcibly had sexual intercourse with Oluwabamise Ayanwole before murdering her.
The offences contravened Sections 411, 223, 260, and 165 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
Bamise was last seen on February 26, 2022, after she boarded a BRT bus driven by Ominikoron in the Ajah area of Lagos.
Her disappearance triggered widespread outrage and a city-wide search.
Her body was discovered nine days later on Carter Bridge, Lagos Island.
During the trial, the State called 11 witnesses who testified against the convict.
The convict who opened his defence on October 17, 2024, denied raping nor killing Oluwabamise.
Although there was no eye witness account of the incident, the court relied on a series of circumstantial evidence, the evidence of the pathologist, and the dying declaration of the victim all of which the judge held pointed solely to the defendant as the last person to see her before her death on February 26, 2022.
The court also convicted the defendant for the rape of a 29-year-old lady, Nneka Maryjane Ozezulu, on November 25, 2021.
The court noted that the defendant had a history of raping female passengers in his BRT bus as submitted by the extrajudicial statements of two victims of his crime – the testimony of Ozezulu, and the terrifying voice note sent out by Bamise just before she died.
The court said the voice note showed that Bamise did not consent to sexual intercourse with the defendant.
The court, however, held that medical reports neither showed that the late Bamise was penetrated nor was any semen found in her.
This, it said, meant that the action of rape was not concluded or that it failed.
The court, therefore, discharged the defendant on the offence of rape of the late Bamise but found him guilty for the lesser offence of attempted rape which was successfully proved by the prosecution.
The court also discharged the defendant on the offence of conspiracy insisting that the prosecution had not proved the same.
The prosecution, led by the Director of Public Prosecution in Lagos, Dr Babajide Martins, had asked the court to apply the maximum sentence while the defence counsel, Abayomi Omotubora, pleaded in his allocutus that the judge should temper justice with mercy.
