On Monday, July 17, Justice Christiana Obadina of an Osun State High Court sitting in Ikire sentenced Phillips Segun, a pastor at the Cherubim and Cherabum Church, Solution Chapel, Ikoyi-Ile, to death by hanging for conspiring with one Owolabi Adeeko, 23, to murder Favour Daley-Oladele, Adeeko’s girlfriend, a final-year student at Lagos State University.
Adeeko, 23, was sentenced to death by hanging by the court during the verdict phase for the gruesome killing of the final-year sociology student after enticing her to Ikire from Lagos, while his mother, Bola, 46, was found guilty of eating human flesh.
During the trial, the prosecution team from the Ministry of Justice led by Mrs Adekemi Bello, called nine witnesses, including the police investigating officer and tendered several exhibits before the court, while the convicts testified in their respective defence without calling any other witness. The prosecutors told the court that Owolabi and Favour had been dating for about a month before he lured her to Ikire under the pretense that she should come visit his uncle while Owolabi, his mother and Prophet Segun had concluded plans to kill her and use her body parts for money ritual.
The prosecution team said unknown to Favour that her boyfriend had planned to kill her, she agreed to follow him to visit his Uncle. However when they got to Ikire, Favour was killed in the church after Owolabi smashed her on the head with a pestle and her organs used for ritual before her remain was buried in a shallow grave outside the church on December 8, 2019.
The prosecution team told the court that few weeks later, the body was exhumed by the police after arresting the suspects who confessed to the murder and they were first arraigned before the court in November 15, 2021 on two counts bordering on conspiracy and murder contrary to sections 324 and 319(1) of the Criminal Code Cap. 34 Laws of Osun State, 2002.
In her judgement, Justice Obadina said that prosecuting counsel has proven her case beyond a reasonable doubt.