A Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Akure, Ondo state, has remanded three people to a correctional centre over their alleged involvement in the killing of a 36-year-old farmer, Sunday Ayeni.
The three accused who include, Abdullah Halilu Tumbi, 59; Mohamodu Adamu Bonkolo, 50; and Shagari Muhammed, 45, were remanded at Olokuta correctional center on a -two-count charge.
They were alleged to have killed Ayeni, a farmer, on his farm a few days after paying the farmer for the destruction of his farm by the herders and their cows.
The traditional heads had ordered the accused to pay the farmer for grazing on his farm and damaging his crops, but Ayeni was found in his pool of blood on his farm at Uba Akoko in Akoko South west of the state, with his stomach ripped open by the suspected killers.
The police charged the defendants with two counts of conspiracy and murder while they pleaded not guilty to the two count charge.
The Police prosecutor, Folashade Adeyemi, told the court that the defendants and others at large committed the offence on August 10, 2024 at Afiri Camp via Oka-Akoko, Akoko South-West Local Government Area.
According to the prosecution, the defendants allegedly conspired with others at large to kill the farmer, Ayeni, by stabbing him with a cutlass while he was working on his farm.
The charge reads: “That you, Abdullah Halilu Tumbi, Mohamodu Adamu Bonkolo, and Shagari Muhammed, and others at large, did stab one Ayeni Sunday ‘m’ during a clash with him on his farm with a sharp cutlass on his stomach, which eventually led to his death.”
The prosecutor stated that the offence contravened Sections 316, 319, and 324 of the Criminal Code Law of Ondo State, 2006, praying the court to remand the defendants at any correctional centre in the state pending advice from the office of the DPP.
The Chief Magistrate, A. Akinboboye, did not however, take the pleas of the three defendants who pleaded not guilty but ordered their remand at the Olokuta Correctional Centre in Akure pending the advice of the state Directorate of Public Prosecutions, (DPP)
Magistrate Akinboboye ordered that the case file to be duplicated and sent to the office of the DPP, and adjourned the case until December for mention.
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