Man, 47, to die by hanging for killing own father

A 47-year-old man, Mr Blessing Olumakinde, will die by hanging after an Ado Ekiti High Court sentenced him to death for killing his father over inheritance.

Olumakinde had murdered his father, Benson Egunlae, with an axe and a cutlass, when he was dissatisfied with what his father had allotted him as his own share of his property.

According to the prosecution, Olumakinde had traced his father to their farmstead in Odo community in Ado Ekiti Local Government Area of Ekiti State where he committed the act and bolted.

The accused had ran away from home for six months before eventually turning himself in to the Police, which arraigned him on a one-count charge of murder.

His father was said to have been married to six women and had eighteen children, who had been I dispute over the sharing of his parcels of land.

The incident was said to have occurred sometime in 2009.

The Chief Judge of Ekiti State, Justice Ayodeji Daramola, who handed down the sentence, contended that the evidence before the court had showed that the accused was guilty of murder as charged.

Justice Daramola agreed with the prosecution, saying that it had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

He therefore ruled that the accused be hanged by the neck until life goes out of him.

The state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Owoseni Ajayi, represented the prosecution while the accused was represented by Mr. Morakinyo Ogele.

Exhibits including the axe and cutlass with which the accused stabbed his father on the head and the chest and pictures were tendered and admitted.

The accused in his confessional statement to the Police admitted to killing his father in a hut on the farm.

The prosecution had called two witnesses in the course of trial while the accused testified in his defence.