A Togolese cook, Sunday Anani, charged with the murder of the Chief Executive Officer of Credit Switch Ltd, Chief Opeyemi Bademosi, on Tuesday told a Lagos High Court in Igbosere that he was interested in a plea bargain agreement with the government.
Anani, 23, is standing trial on a two-count charge of murder and armed robbery preferred against him by the Lagos State government.
According to the prosecution, Anani, last October 31, at Parkview Estate, Ikoyi Lagos, stabbed Bademosi, 67, to death with a knife and stole his valuables.
He was arraigned on April 10, and pleaded “Not guilty”, following which the judge adjourned till yesterday for trial.
At the commencement of proceedings on Tuesday, Anani’s counsel, the Director of the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), Mrs Aderenra Adeyemi, informed the court of the defendant’s intention to change his plea.
Adeyemi told Justice Mobolanle Okikiolu-Ighile that Anani would be opting for a plea bargain deal and that the defence had approached the prosecutor, Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Ms Titilayo Shitta-Bay, to that effect.
The judge directed her to bring application to that effect and ordered that trial should continue.
Shitta-Bey then called Mrs. Ebunoluwa Bademosi, wife of the deceased, as the prosecution’s first witness.
The witness narrated how on the day of the incident, she returned from a bank to find her husband in a pool of blood on the floor.
She said: “I went through the kitchen door to gain access to the building. The kitchen door was locked. I knocked several times, calling on the defendant (Anani), but he didn’t come to open the door.
“My husband’s bedroom and the kitchen door was a distance, so I felt he (Anani) must be doing something for him, so I waited by the kitchen door, for a while.
“While i was waiting, I got a call from my sister, at Ibadan and we spoke for about 5-6 minutes.
‘’At some point, I brought out my phone from my bag and called my husband, I realised that the phone was being picked but he was not responding.
‘’I called him twice and it was the same thing. It was showing minutes counting but nobody was talking.
‘’I went downstairs and decided to pass through the front door, thinking if I got there, there would be somebody at the door. By the time i got to the front door, I realised that the door was left ajar.”
She said that was when she knew something had gone wrong.
The witness said: “I entered the apartment. By the time I got in, I looked up and saw blood flowing out of my husband’s bedroom.
‘’I couldn’t enter my husband’s bedroom because the door was only partially open but I could see his body lying on the floor.
‘’I wasn’t sure of what could be happening inside the bedroom, so, I ran out of the building and started screaming, calling neighbours to help.
‘’A couple of people came. I told them to go up and check that something was happening, that I didn’t know what exactly it was”.
Mrs. Bademosi told the court that she ran to the gate and asked the security man, “Where is that guy that oga brought into the house? What is happening? Who is inside the house?”
The guard said the defendant informed him the deceased sent him on an errand.
“People started coming, my next door neighbours and her driver were going upstairs and I followed them but i stood at a distance.
‘’They came out and said he was gone (sobbing), my husband was gone, and the defendant was not inside the house, then i passed out.
“When I woke up, I saw a crowd around me, inside the house, my husband’s corpse was lying down there.
‘’They took me downstairs because they didn’t want me to see the corpse. The police later came and took his corpse in an ambulance, he was buried on November 21, 2018″.
Following her heavy sobbing, Justice adjourned for a few minutes.
Afterwards, the witness was cross examined by the Director of the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), Mrs. Aderenra Adeyemi.
She told Adeyemi she had had no problems with the deceased.
“I had a very cordial relationship with my husband. I cooked for my husband”.
When Adeyemi suggested she had had a strained relationship with her husband, following which she didn’t relate well with Anani.
Mrs. Bademosi disagreed, saying “I did not have a strained relationship with my husband.”
Justice Okikiolu-Ighile, adjourned till June 11, for continuation of trial.
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