BAMISE’S MURDER: HOW VICTIM’S VOICE NOTES, OTHER EVIDENCE NAILED BRT DRIVER

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The family of the late fashion designer, Bamise Ayanwola, and the human rights community heaved a sigh of relief on Friday when the Lagos State High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square convicted and sentenced to death by hanging a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) driver, Andrew Ominikoron, for the murder of the 22-year-old.

While delivering her judgment which lasted over two and half hours, Justice Serifat Sonaike held that the prosecution, the Lagos State Government, successfully proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the offence.

“For the death of Oluwabamise Ayanwola, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy upon you,” Justice Sonaike said.

Although there was no eyewitness account of the incident, the court relied on a series of circumstantial evidence, the evidence of the pathologist, and the dying declaration of the victim all of which the judge held pointed solely to the defendant as the last person to see her before her death on February 26, 2022.

The court also convicted the defendant for the rape of a 29-year-old lady, Nneka Maryjane Ozezulu, on November 25, 2021.

The court noted that the defendant had a history of raping female passengers in his BRT bus as submitted by the extrajudicial statements of two victims of his crime – the testimony of Ozezulu, and the terrifying voice note sent out by Bamise just before she died.

The court said the voice note showed that Bamise did not consent to sexual intercourse with the defendant.

It, however, held that medical reports neither showed that the late Bamise was penetrated nor was any semen found in her.

This, it said, meant that the action of rape was not concluded or that it failed.

The court, therefore, discharged the defendant on the offence of rape of the late Bamise but found him guilty of the lesser offence of attempted rape which was successfully proved by the prosecution.

The defendant (handcuffed) pleaded not guilty but three years later, the court returned a guilty verdict on four out of those five counts.The prosecution, led by the Director of Public Prosecution in Lagos, Babajide Martins, had asked the court to apply the maximum sentence while the defence counsel, Abayomi Omotubora, pleaded in his allocutus that the judge should temper justice with mercy.

Murder On February 26
The trial of the BRT driver began three years ago, in March 2022, when he was charged before the Lagos High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy, attempted rape, rape, murder, and sexual assault.

The defendant pleaded not guilty but three years later, the court returned a guilty verdict on four out of those five counts.

The news of the death of the deceased, 22-year-old-fashion designer, Bamise Ayanwola, went viral at the time, particularly for the gruesome manner in which she was murdered.

While closing late from work on the evening of February 26, 2022, Bamise boarded the popular BRT bus driven by the convict from the Ajah axis of Lagos Island.

She soon noticed that something was off and proceeded to send out voice notes to family and friends alerting them to her danger in the hands of the bus driver. Her body was discovered along the Carter Bridge expressway, nine days later.

Issue For Determination
In her judgement, Justice Sonaike identified a single issue for determination.

The judge said, “The issue which is all-encompassing and which I have distilled is whether the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt the essential element of rape, conspiracy to commit a felony, to wit: rape and murder; rape of Bamise without her consent, murder of Bamise by unlawfully killing her between Lekki and Carter Bridge, and sexual assault of one other, Victoria Anoike”.

The judge first considered as a preliminary issue whether the evidence and facts gathered by the police officers during the investigation amounted to hearsay and therefore inadmissible in proving the case before the court.

Contrary to the submission of the defendant’s counsel, the court found that the evidence of PW 3, 7, and 8 who are investigating police officers in this case did not amount to hearsay evidence.

Citing S48 of the Evidence Act 2011, the court held that such evidence was direct evidence of what they heard, saw, and discovered in the course of their duties as investigators because such evidence was usually direct and positive as narrated to the police officers by the victim, witnesses or even the defendant with whom they came in contact during the investigation of the case.

Offence Of Murder
The prosecution, in this case, satisfied the requirements necessary to prove the ingredients of the offence, according to the court.

The court held that going through the totality of the evidence, the defendant, though regretted the death of the deceased, acknowledged all that transpired on his BRT bus on the night in question from when he picked up the deceased to when she was thrown or dragged out of the bus, yet did not give any confessional statement of being responsible for her death, or admit the charge.

In the same vein, none of the nine prosecution witnesses gave evidence that it was the act of the defendant that they witnessed that caused her death.

The evidence being deployed by the prosecution was said to have been based on circumstantial evidence.

Citing decided authorities, the court held that for circumstantial evidence to support a conviction,

it must not only be cogent but must be complete and unequivocal, compelling, and lead to only one irresistible conclusion that the defendant and no one else was the murderer.

It further held that in the particular case, the prosecution called a pathologist from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Prof. Sunday Soyemi, who testified on the cause of death and whether it could be attributed to the defendant.

“The findings of the pathologist showed that Bamise died on February 26, 2022, from a severe cranial-cerebral injury and blunt force trauma which is consistent with a person thrown out of a bus,” the court said.

On whether the acts of the defendant caused the death of Bamise, the court held that in proving this, the prosecution consistently showed that the defendant was not only in the habit of sexually harassing his passengers but that on the particular date, the evidence of the prosecution and the defence were in tandem that the deceased boarded his bus, and was alone with him.

“Since there was no eyewitness account, the prosecution, through its witnesses, shows that while the deceased was alone on the bus and subsequently when other people boarded the bus, (there was no evidence led on whether the other persons alighted the bus), the defendant attempted to sexually assault the deceased and upon her resistance, she was murdered and her body disposed of by throwing her off the bus,” the court held.

“She was later found dead on the expressway and this evidence coupled with the medical findings of the pathologist showed that whatever happened on the bus is consistent with the state in which the deceased was found dead.

“In linking the act of the defendant to the death of Bamise, the prosecution employed the use of:

“(1) dying declaration of voice notes contained in voice recordings of Bamise with her friend and which was admitted evidence,” it added.

Voice Notes Amid Danger
Furthermore, the prosecution sought to establish that the voice notes made by the deceased were in imminent threat to her life before her eventual death at the hands of the defendant and as such, the court should find that it implicated the defendant.

The voice notes were played in court and as translated, it highlighted the fact that the defendant switched off the light and left it in total darkness after Bamise boarded and he also did not stop to pick up other passengers until he noticed the deceased making distress calls to her friends.

The contention of the prosecution was that this declaration equivocally pointed to the guilt of the defendant being a dying declaration Bamise made when she believed herself to be in imminent danger of approaching death due to the behaviour of the defendant.

The behavioral pattern of the defendant, which is his mode of operation, on unsuspecting females was recounted by another prosecution witness who accused him of rape.

Consequently, quoting extensively from the previous decisions of former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kayode Ariwoola, and a retired justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Bode Rhodes-Viviour, especially on the doctrine of dying declaration and the evidence of the victim, the court held that “the voice recordings made by Bamise was made in imminent fear of threat to her life and was a dying declaration which indeed implicated the defendant”.

‘Author of Bamise’s Death’
On the doctrine of last seen, the court also held that the last seen theory is usually applied in homicide cases and that by his admission, the defendant was the last person who was alone with Bamise before she was thrown out of his BRT bus and later found dead in a naked state along the expressway inward Carter Bridge.

“From all the circumstantial evidence, coupled with the actions of the defendant, his failure to report the incident at his office or to anyone in authority but instead running away from home and fleeing from Lagos to hide in a remote village in Ogun State, and his fabricated story to lead the court on these issues are all acts that point to the established fact that the defendant was fully aware of his actions and his action could result in the death of Bamise,” the judge said.

The judge noted that the defendant failed to explain or show how the defendant met her death, adding that all the evidence of the prosecution witness and his evidence made it easy for the court to come to the irresistible conclusion that the defendant and no one else murdered the deceased.

“Indeed the defendant is the writer and author of the deceased’s death. To all intents and purposes, it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution that the defendant acted with full knowledge of all the probable consequences of his action,” the court held.

The court therefore sentenced Ominnikoron to death by hanging for the murder.

‘Paedophile, Serial Rapist’
On the count of rape of a 29-year-old lady, Nneka Maryjane Ozezulu, on November 25, 2021, without her consent, the court held that by her evidence and the evidence of the investigative police officer, the prosecution was able to establish that the defendant had sex with her.

It said the victim gave an account of how the defendant had unlawful sexual activities with her on his BRT bus.

“She said the defendant turned off the light in the bus, collected her phone, threatened her with a knife, tore off her clothes, and proceeded to have sexual intercourse with her without her consent. Though direct evidence of penetration was not established, the defendant did not deny but sought to pull a wool over the eyes of the court that it was mutual sex rendezvous as between two consenting adults,” it held.

It further held that there were also supporting materials that lent credence to the case and provided corroboration that it was not consensual sex.

“If it was consensual sex, why in a BRT bus, why not at his home or a hotel or some other more dignifying environment? Why? Why? Why?

“A calm view of the totality of this case, particularly the manner in which Mary-Jane Odezulu was raped, Bamise was attempted to be raped, and Victoria Anoke was assaulted by the defendant, all within a three-month interval merely goes to show that there may be more Mary-Janes and more Anokes outside who, for fear of shame, fail to come forward and give evidence against the defendant,” it held.

The judge while asserting that there might be more Mary Janes and Anokes, described the BRT driver as a paedophile and serial rapist who used the position of trust entrusted to him by the government to target the innocent and the vulnerable in society to satisfy his “uncultured urges and thirst for sexual intercourse”.

Justice Sonaike said, “The defendant can best be described as a paedophile, a serial rapist who employed the position of trust entrusted to him by the government to target the innocent and the vulnerable in society to satisfy his uncultured urges and thirst for sexual intercourse. This is an unforgivable crime even under the law.

“With the defendant being the driver of a government-owned bus, how safe are our young girls and women? There is a need for the government and those who run transport services to overhaul their recruitment processes, the working hours of their driver, and how best to keep the passengers safe in the bus.”

On the alleged rape of Bamise, the court, however, held, “In the case of Bamise, the defendant fully intended to have sexual intercourse with the deceased which has become his lifestyle while driving at night. Even though penetration failed, there is proof that there was an attempt and the resultant death must have ensued when she resisted the defendant”.

Conspiracy Not Established
On the charge of conspiracy to commit a felony with rape and murder, the judge discharged and acquitted the Lagos BRT driver, adding that the court had not found any proof of conspiracy either by direct evidence or necessary inference between the defendant and more persons to commit the crime of rape and murder of Bamise Ayanwola”.

“The prosecution failed to prove any agreement between the defendant and others be it at large or otherwise to commit the offence nor has the prosecution proved that in furtherance of any confederacy, there was anything done of an apparent criminal purpose by the defendant and others.

“Accordingly this count fails and the defendant is accordingly discharged and acquitted,” the judge said.

However, the family of the late Bamise has called on the Lagos State Government to fish out the other conspirators who worked with the convict.

The elder brother of the deceased, Abegunde Pelumi, who spoke to journalists after the verdict was handed down said voice notes sent out by Bamise while she was on the BRT bus and before she met her untimely demise suggested that the convict was not acting alone.

Pelumi, who testified during the trial as prosecution witness six, said the family tracked the phone after their sister (Bamise) stopped communicating, adding that it led to the arrest of the defendant who fled with it to a remote village in Ogun State where the police picked him up.

He, therefore, urged the police to release the phone as information contained in it could lead to the arrest of the other persons still at large.

Pelumi said, “He didn’t do this thing alone. So from the admissible voice notes Bamise dropped, we were made to know that there were other people in the vehicle. What about these other accomplices?”

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Chairman of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), a non-governmental organisation that monitored the trial from arraignment to the verdict, also lamented the length of time it took to get judgement.

The Chairman of the CDHR in Lagos State, Kehinde Adeoye, also joined in demand for the release of her (Bamise’s) phone.