From: Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
An Oyo State Magistrate Court, sitting at Iyaganku, Ibadan, on Wednesday, remanded the six suspected killers of the former Commandant, Command Secondary School, Apata, Ibadan, Col. Anthony Okeyim, in Agodi Prisons.
The police told the court that the deceased breathed his last after he was thrown from upstairs to the ground floor at his official residence within the school premises.
The deceased had been newly promoted to the rank of a Brigadier-General three weeks before his death and was waiting to be decorated with his new rank at the time of his assassination,
Okeyim’s lifeless body had been found in the premises of the school on December 12, 2016. He was said to have been killed around 10p.m on December 11, last year in his house within the school premises.
The 2 Division of Nigerian Army, Ibadan, had arrested the six persons in connection with the murder, and handed them over to the police for prosecution.
The Samsung X4 phone of the deceased was, according to the Deputy Director, Public Relations, 2 Division, Col. Timothy Antigha, found in the possession of the first suspect, Solomon Agada Emmanuel, 20.
The other five suspects are Taiwo Adeniyi, 33 (fondly called Ejima); Bibisoye Kehinde, 27 (fondly called Efrebor); Ewere Andrew, 25; Udobata Onusa-Uzi, 28 (fondly called Kaka) and Ephraim Obi, 38.
The police, however, arraigned the suspects before Mrs. R.A. Ebeloku-Mustapha, of the magistrate court, who ordered them to be remanded in the prisons, pending legal advice from the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP). She adjourned the case to March 28, this year.
The prosecuting police officer, Mr. Musiliu Fatola, had preferred a three-count charge against the accused. The first count alleged the suspects to have conspired among themselves to commit felony to wit robbery and murder on December 11, 2016 at about 10p.m at the school, which is located at Owode area of Apata, and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 324 of the Criminal Code Cap 38 Volume II Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria 2000.
The second count alleged that the suspects robbed the deceased commandant of his Samsung X4, and thereby committed an offence. The third count preferred against the suspects stated that they unlawfully caused the death of Okeyim, 52, by throwing him from upstairs to the down floor, which led to his death, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 316 and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code Cap 38, Vol II, Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria 2000.
The court did not take the plea of the suspects.
But the charges were only read to them and each of them were asked if they understood the charges, and their answers were in the affirmative.
Autopsy reports, made available to journalists in Ibadan by the Nigerian Army, said the deceased died as a result of rise in intacranial pressure from intracranial hemorrhage caused by fracture of the skull.