20-Year-Old Faces Murder Charge After Street Fight

The Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions has continued with the trial of a 20-year-old, Benjamin Sunday, who allegedly murdered one Gbenga Adigun, in a street fight.
Sunday, who has been facing trial for two years, allegedly committed the offence in 2013 when he was 18 years old.

The charge sanctioned by a former Lagos Director of Public Prosecutions, Mrs. Olabisi Ogungbensan, now a High Court judge, read, “Benjamin Sunday, on the 2nd day of June 2013, at Harmony Estate, Ifako Ijaiye, Lagos, in the Ikeja Judicial Division, murdered one Gbenga Adigun by stabbing him with a broken bottle.”

According to the prosecution the offence of murder is contrary to Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

But Sunday had pleaded not guilty.

However, a confessional statement, which the police claimed that the accused made voluntarily to one Sergeant Moses Godwin on July 6, 2013, read in part, “…On July 6, 2013, there was a party on Mayowa’s (the deceased) street. As I got there, I saw Mayowa and his friends. He called me, but I refused to answer him.

“After the party, around 7pm, Mayowa gave me a fist blow. I fell down. It was Matthew Okanlawon who poured water on me before I regained consciousness.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw Mayowa with a broken bottle, so I rushed to collect the bottle from him. And as we were struggling, the bottle fell from his hand and I collected it. I used the bottle to stab him in the rib and chest. At that point, he took to his heels and I left.

“The following day, the police arrested my brother and he came with the police to arrest me. That was when I got to know that he died.”

On the day before the incident, Sunday had gone for an all-night show at Fela Shrine, where he had an altercation with the deceased.

He had said, “As we were leaving the shrine, one of Mayowa’s girlfriends started abusing me; but instead of Mayowa to ask the girl to stop, he shouted at me. Mayowa also gave me a fist blow and we started fighting and the police from Area G Command arrested us.”

At the proceedings on Monday, the landlord in whose house the corpse of the deceased was later discovered, Olatoye Ogundeji, testified as a prosecution’s witness.

Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye adjourned till November 19, 2015, for continuation of trial, while Sunday was returned to the Kirikiri Prison.

October 14, 2015