A former Acting Chairman of the Oyo
State chapter of National Union of Road Transport Workers, Alhaji
Mukaila Lamidi, popularly called Auxiliary, was on Monday sentenced to
six years imprisonment for conspiracy to murder.
Auxiliary was sentenced by Justice Eni
Esan of the Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan. Also jailed were
Saidi Kareem, Abu Kareem and Kazeem Kayode.
The fifth accused person, Taiwo Tijani, who was standing trial with the jailed persons, is already dead.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Esan
noted that Auxiliary and others were sentenced because of conspiracy to
murder even though they were also tried for murder.
The judge ruled that the prosecuting
counsel failed in his attempt to convince the court beyond reasonable
doubt over the allegations of murder and attempted murder.
Counsel for the sentenced NURTW members,
Mr. Olalekan Ojo and Adeleke Bakare, begged the judge for lighter
sentence and to consider the status of Auxiliary and others as
breadwinners in their various families with aged parents and other
dependents.
Ojo noted that they had already been punished having spent two years in jail since the trial began.
Justice Esan clarified that the two
years they had spent in jail would be removed from their six-year jail
term without any option of fine.
Ojo and Bakare however said that the ruling would be contested at the Appeal Court.
In 2014, the Lagos Police Command paraded auxiliary for illegal possession of guns.
He was arrested by the command’s Special
Anti- Robbery Squad, led by Aba Kyari at the Olodo area of Ibadan on
May 10, 2014 after an incriminating statement made by an illegal arms
dealer, Abdulazeez Amao, who was arrested with arms hidden in bags of
flour.