FeaturesJustice Delayed For Oluwabamise?

Justice Delayed For Oluwabamise?

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That is the question on the lips of most Nigerians who have followed closely the trial of BRT driver Andrew Ominnikoron since last May. Charged for conspiracy, rape and murder of a lone female passenger in a public bus he was driving months before, counsels representing the accused have not made the customary appearance in court. Six months down the line, the trial has not progressed more than the day it began. Last Wednesday September 28, the accused oddly named Nice appeared in court with a protective face mask, a warden draping his hands across his shoulders. Predictably, his defence lawyer failed to show up. Justice delayed, so the saying goes, is justice denied. Michael Jimoh reports…

If ever Andrew Ominnikoron the BRT driver currently under trial for conspiracy, rape and murder were to sit on a psychiatrist’s couch, the verdict would no doubt be something close to being audacious for the crimes he has been accused of. For three times in just four months, the heavily built motorist responded to the baser nature of man by forcing two female passengers to non-consensual sex in a Bus Rapid Transit vehicle he was driving.

In retrospect, you could say Ominnikoron – oddly named Nice who did not live up to his name – lived double lives during that period. For three or four days a week, he conveyed passengers to and from work in the daytime. (Whether male or female, BRT drivers work on alternate days from Monday to Saturday.) By night, he picked up lone, female passengers and then forced them to have sex with him.

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Strong like an ox with beefy biceps, Ominnikoron’s victims are smaller physically. One, Oluwabamise Ayanwole, 22, a fashion designer, died in the process. With gentle feminine persuasion and guile, another escaped and hastily de-boarded from the vehicle before her final destination. Against her wish, a third succumbed to the driver’s unwelcome and forceful overtures.

When Maryjane Odezelu boarded the bus Ominnikoron was driving on November 25, 2021, she expected to reach her destination safe and sound. She did not. Alone with Omminikoron, things started going the way she never planned or expected.

From her testimony during the first trial on May 9, she claimed the accused asked her to move from the back seat to the front close to Ominnikoron the driver. She obliged him, which probably encouraged him to begin to ask her some intimate questions. According to Odezelu, the man then brought out what she thought was a medication and drank it with water. Before you could spell Maryjane, the man’s member became very turgid, shooting up straight from his trousers.

The young woman knew what was coming from then on. She resisted Ominnikoron who threatened her with a knife, tore her clothes and then had her from behind. Taken as a compensatory gesture, he promptly wired N3, 000 to her account to take care of herself after apologizing to the victim. Asked why she didn’t complain to the police soon after, Odezelu said she distrusts the police because they used to ask for money.

There is no indication Odezelu told anyone what happened that night on November 25, not to her family, friends or colleagues. But once Bamise’s story broke last February, she recognised the serial sex offender at once. She then felt safe enough to come out with her own story.

Last Wednesday September 28, Ominnikoron appeared before Lagos State High Court in Tafawa Balewa Square in continuation of the rape and murder trial of Ominnikoron. Details of the case leading to the trial is very much known by most Nigerians and the rest of the world. On the evening of February 26, Oluwabamise boarded the BRT bus Ominnikoron was driving. There was a male passenger in the vehicle when she got in at Chevron bus stop. That was when Bamise’s troubles began.

Alone with the driver, and with a woman’s instinctual feeling, she began to notice the driver ogling her and making lewd gestures. With the hydraulic doors sealed shutting both driver and commuter from the rest of the world like the tomb of a pharaoh, Bamise panicked. Psychologist like to say sometimes that only the paranoid survive. The inference is that if one is conscious of one’s environment, you are more than likely to escape an unexpected ambush. Bamise saw the ambush coming but she couldn’t do much to escape it.

For one, she was way, way smaller than the driver who stood at an imposing six-feet-plus. Though no witness was in the bus except the assailant and his unfortunate victim, it is possible Ominnikoron threatened the poor girl with a weapon – a pocket knife concealed somewhere in the bus to be used at the opportune time, the same instrument he allegedly used to scare Maryjane the previous November.

After sexually satisfying himself, he proceeded to kill Bamise and then threw her body off the bus with the calmness and casualness of a street cleaner dispensing with unwanted trash. The BRT driver then drove his bus, as he was wont to, to the terminal at Oshodi, parked it, signed off for the day, and then ran away to Odogbolu in neighboring Ogun state.

Life would have gone on swimmingly for the BRT driver but for Bamise’s panic. Trapped in life-threatening situations like Bamise faced that night, the fight or flight response were the only options open to her for any chance of survival. She could do neither. Her assailant was bigger and stronger. The bus was sealed from door to door. But she did manage to send urgent messages and videos to her sister explaining the predicament she was in and details of the BRT driver and his bus.

So, when news of Bamise’s death reached her parents, they knew exactly where to go. Though there was some initial resistance by the management of BRT in handing over the sex-hungry driver to the police, Bamise’s hastily sent messages to her sister convinced his employers and was promptly handed over to the police.

According to law enforcement agent’s reconstruction of the rape and murder case, the fashion designer who had just had her freedom from apprenticeship and looking forward to setting up her own tailoring outfit went missing on February 26 enroute Ota in Ogun state from Ajah. She boarded a bus with number 240257 going to Oshodi at about 7 p.m. at Chevron Bus-Stop. She did not reach her destination. It was her corpse that was found near Carter Bridge.

Found out by an investigating team of police and DSS, the driver told a different story. Three male passengers who were already inside the bus threatened him with a gun and he panicked. “I picked her from Chevron,” Ominnikoron said in his statement. “When the other three guys at …when those guys show me his weapon as I was inside, I can’t be myself anymore.

“Fears have come in, so, whatever the man with the gun told me, I do. I followed that Carter Bridge, that overhead bridge, they ordered me to stop there. They say I should open the door, when I open the door, then when they come down, they now start dragging her, when I saw that she was crying for help, actually, I was helpless.”

Was he fibbing or telling the truth? To answer the first question, his lawyer will have to disprove what has become something of a pattern, considering Odezelu’s testimony, of the driver carrying out and executing what seems to have been premeditated actions. “He brought a medication and drank it with water…his penis became erect,” Maryjane said in her testimony.

It is a damning enough testimony. What is far more baffling to most people now is the consistent absence of his counsels in court on days fixed for trial. Is it deliberate on their part, to prolong the trial for as long as possible to wipe it off public memory and so die a natural death?

Several excuses by one of the counsel range from handling other court cases to traffic gridlock. The presiding judge, Justice Sherifat Sonaike, had warned the counsel Abayomi Omotubora during the last sitting on July 7 to make an appearance.

“If he is unable to avail himself a lawyer on the next adjourned date,” Sonaike said then, “I will direct that the Legal Aid Council should take up his case. The defendant’s counsel, Omotubora, has been absent from court on several occasions. This is unbecoming of a lawyer of this noble profession. This particular counsel has failed to come to court to conduct his trial and this court strongly condemns it.”

The counsel himself has been absent a half dozen times, prompting Dr. Babajide Martins, Director of Public Prosecution, to inform the court that the defendant’s counsel was not in court. Omotubora was said have arrived the court after proceedings.

For now, Bamise’s parents, sibs, friends and concerned Nigerians are in the dark as to what would become of the case. Outside the court premises last Wednesday, sympathisers brandished banners seeking justice for the late fashion designer. Mr. Nice has been returned to detention at Ikoyi Prison. Will his defence counsel absent himself from court in subsequent hearings, presumably, to delay justice again? Time will tell.

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Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.

Michael Jimoh, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.

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