NIGERIA: PASTOR SENTENCED TO DEATH BY HANGING FOR COMMITTING MURDER IN ONDO

May 31, 2020:

Samson Kolawole, a pastor with a Pentecostal church in Ondo State, on 29 May 2020 was sentenced to death for committing murder.
Kolawole was sentenced to death by hanging by a high court sitting in Akure, the state capital.
He was accused of killing one Mr Ayo Olaniyi at a farm settlement within the Oke-Igbo axis in Ile-Oluji/Oke-Igbo Local Government Area of the state. 
According to Justice Ademola Bola, Kolawole was guilty of Olaniyi's death after inflicting machete cuts on his head at Gberinlegi Village in 2016.
Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state represented by two government’s lawyers, Mr Olusegun Akeredolu and Mrs Omotola Ologun, told the court that the pastor inflicted a deep cut on the head of late Olaniyi when he went to hunt for frogs with three of his friends at a fish pond.
The two lawyers argued that the offence was contrary to Section 316 and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Laws of Ondo State (2006).
The trial judge, Justice Bola, ruled that all evidence before the court during the trial in the last four years showed that Kolawole was guilty of killing Olaniyi and deserve to die by hanging.