Two security guards, Ayuba Idris and Tasur Abubakar, will have to die by hanging for armed robbery and gruesome murder of their 71-year old Ghanaian boss, Kwaku Richard Kwakye and his daughter, Tope Kwakye, in Ondo State.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that the Ondo State High Court, sitting in Akure, convicted the duo for culpable homicide for killing the father and daughter in 2019 in cold blood.
The convicts worked as security guards at Ojomo Akintan Estate, Owo Expressway, Akure, Ondo State, while the deceased was a driver to a 92-year old industrialist in the State, High Chief Ojomo Akintan.
The deceased boss, High Chief Akintan, gave out one of the flats in the Estate to Kwakye as a gift for his stewardship and forthrightness over the years he served him.
In a bid to secure the Estate, Kwakye, engaged the services of the guards, who ended up killing him and the daughter in a cruel manner and dumped their corpses in a staircase and escaped.
The daughter, Tope, a graduate, was due for her National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, in July 2019, before her life was cut short.
The Counsel for the Ondo State Government, John Dada, charged the convicts with five counts, which included armed robbery and murder under the Criminal law of the State, which happened on 1st May, 2019, around 8:30 pm, at Ojomo Akintan Estate, Olufoam in Akure.
Mr. Dada told the Court that the convicts were armed with dangerous weapons and killed their victims with motorcycle cables.
Delivering the judgement, the Presiding Judge, Justice Williams Olamide, stated that the prosecution failed to prove two of the charges against the convicts and subsequently discharged and acquitted them.
However, Justice Olamide stated the convicts were guilty of the offence of conspiracy contained and therefore, sentenced them to seven years imprisonment.
On the charge of murder, they were found guilty and consequently the sentenced to death by hanging by the neck until they are dead.
The convicts, while paraded by the Police four years ago, confessed that they murdered their employer and daughter under the influence of hard drugs. Their decomposing bodies were later discovered 16 days after.
This was made possible after the killers were arrested in Kano and Sokoto respectively.
Abubakar said he could not explain what came over them to kill their employer of two years.
“We were just happy that night and we took tramadol and Indian hemp with hot drinks.
We used motorcycle cable to strangle the father and daughter. We took tramadol and Indian hemp that night at about 8pm and we invited the daughter to come and see who was at the gate.
When she came down, we used motorcycle cable to strangle her. She shouted and this attracted her father, who came running to the scene. We then descended on the father, who fell inside the gutter.”
“The father was shouting and fell down in the process while calling for help and Ayuba also used his shirt to strangulate him.
After we made sure that they were both dead, we then hid their corpses under the staircase in the estate.”
They said that they used the night to ransack the entire flat and fled with some belongings of both deceased the following day unnoticed by other neighbours in the estate.
On why they fled to different states after committing the crime, Abubakar said it was “to hide from security operatives after they might have discovered the corpses under the staircase in the flat”.
While Ayuba Idris was arrested in Kano State on 16th May, 2019, with the handset of the missing person and his suits, Police detectives tracked down Taisu Abubakar in Sokoto State and one of the victim’s laptop computer and some clothes were recovered from him on the 28th May, 2019.
Abubakar had served the deceased for two years while Taisu joined the deceased five months before they committed the crime.
