•Facebook stalker, nephew found guilty of ex-general’s daughter’s murder
Two of the four men tried for the 2012 murder of a general’s
daughter, Cynthia Osokogu, are to pay the supreme price for the offence.
Okwumo Echezona Nwabufo and his nephew Olisaeloka Ezike are to die
by hanging, Justice Olabisi Akinlade of the Lagos High Court said
yesterday.
Justice Akinlade found them guilty of drugging, chaining and
strangling Osokogu, who was a Nasarawa State University post-graduate
student, to death at Cosmilla Hotel, Festac Town, Lagos, on July 22,
2012.
Orji Osita, 37, and Ezike Nonso, 29, were discharged and acquitted of
the charge of recklessness, negligence and possession of stolen goods.
Osita, a pharmacist, had been accused of supplying Nwabufo with
Rophynol, a sedative which was allegedly used on the deceased, without a
prescription.
While Nonso was accused of buying her stolen Blackberry phones from Ezike.
Nwabufo, 37, Ezike, 27, Osita and Nonso were arraigned on February 8,
2013, on a six-count charge of conspiracy, murder, stealing,
recklessness, negligence and possession of stolen goods.
They pleaded not guilty.
Delivering her judgment which began at 10:53am and ended at about
3:20pm, Justice Akinlade held that the state had proved the counts of
conspiracy, murder and stealing beyond reasonable doubt.
She held that with its 10 witnesses and 17 exhibits, the
prosecution’s case against Nwabufo and Ezike was uncontroverted and that
the circumstantial evidence brought by the state was “cogent, complete,
unequivocal and compelling.”
But the judge resolved in Osita and Nonso’s favour, doubts in the prosecution’s evidence against them.
Relying on the witnesses’ testimonies, Nwabufor’s and Ezike’s
confessional statements and the circumstantial evidence, Justice
Akinlade said: “The court has no doubt that the first and second
defendants killed the deceased and if there are contradictions in their
case, they are minor contradictions.”
Before passing judgment, the judge asked the defendants if they had anything to say.
Their counsel, Victor Okpara and Emeka Eze pleaded for mercy. Okpara
added that Nwabufo was a first time offender who has “tremendous energy
to do something worthwhile with his life. I urge this court to grant him
a reformative sentence.”
In her response, Justice Akinlade said: “I have listened to the plea
of counsel (allocutus). Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State
says clearly that a person who commits murder shall be sentenced to
death.
“In judgment, justice is required not only for the victim, but also
for the society.
In their attempt to steal Cynthia’s property, the first
and second defendants stole her life. They were not even remorseful.
But for the efforts of the police and the Ministry of Justice we
wouldn’t have been able to do anything. This court cannot change the
law.”
She sentenced Nwabufo and Ezike to 14 years imprisonment for stealing
on the first count and three years imprisonment on the two counts of
conspiracy to steal and commit murder.
On the second count of murder, Justice Akinlade said: “I pronounce
the sentence of this court upon you, Okwumo Echezona Nwabufo and
Olisaeloka Ezike, that both of you be hanged by the neck until you are
dead and may God have mercy on your souls.”
In reaching its decision, the court considered, among others, whether
the prosecution proved that there was a murder, the cause of death and
whether it was the defendant’s actions that led to Osokogu’s death.
The prosecution, the judge said, not only proved beyond reasonable
doubts that the deceased died, it also showed that she did not die a
natural death and that her death was the direct result of the first two
defendants’ action.
She said the witnesses’ testimonies were corroborated by the
exhibits, which included the first convict’s laptop containing nude
pictures of the deceased and those of other victims.
Nwabufo, who disowned his confessional statement in court, stated
that the deceased was his fiancée, adding that he did not know how she
died.
He said: “The late Cynthia was my girlfriend; we were close as the way lovers are before they get married.
“I promised her that I would marry her and she accepted but told me
it is still early that I should wait till Christmas when I would visit
her parents in Delta State.”
But the court held, among others, that his failure to provide basic
information about the deceased, such as her hometown, her university and
course of study, the date he proposed to her and the fact that he had
never met or spoken to her family, suggested that his answers were
contrived.
Reading from Nwabufo’s and Ezike’s disowned confessional statements,
which were admitted after a trial-within-trial, the judge said it was
immaterial whether they intended to kill the deceased or not, because
they could be taken to intend the natural consequences of their action.
On Ezike’s statement, the court said: “There is ample evidence that
he participated in the crime. He assisted in tying down the deceased. He
bought the chain with which the deceased was chained. He acted in
concert with the defendant. In such a case, it does not matter who did
what.”
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