Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of an Ikeja High Court sentenced Oladapo to death yesterday by hanging by the neck, for the death of the human rights lawyer, Fadipe.
Justice Ipaye, in her judgment found Oladapo guilty of a five-count charge offence of murder, armed robbery and assault occasioning harm.
Justice Ipaye said: “On count one, you Oluwaseun Oladapo, is to be hung by the neck till you are dead.
“On count two, you Oluwaseun Oladapo is to be hung by the neck till you are dead.
”On count three, you Oluwaseun Oladapo, is to be hung by the neck till you are dead.
”On count four, you Oluwaseun Oladapo is sentenced to three years in prison.
”On count five, you Oluwaseun Oladapo is sentenced to three years in prison.
”The terms of imprisonment of counts four and five is that they should run consecutively.
”This is the judgment of the court. May the Lord forgive your soul.”
Earlier, counsel to the convict, Mr. Worer Obuagbaka, had pleaded for mercy on behalf of his client.
But, the prosecutor, Mrs O.A Olugasa said: “the deceased was not given a second chance by the convict. His children were also not given a second chance to have their father with them.
Oladapo allegedly murdered the lawyer on July 4, 2014, at about 3 a.m. at his residence, located at No. 1 Harmony Estate, Ifako-Ijaiye, Iju, Lagos.
The prosecution was led by Mr Adeniji Kazeem, the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and Mrs Idowu Alakija, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).
Oladapo was also charged with the murder of Mrs Cecelia Owolabi, the mother-in-law to the late Fadipe, but the charge of murder was commuted to assault occasioning harm by the court. Justice Ipaye said: “The prosecution did not prove a direct link between the actions of the defendant and the death of Madam Cecelia Owolabi.
During the trial, the wife of the late lawyer, Mrs Kemi Fadipe, in her testimony gave a graphic narration of the events of the night of the murder.
Kemi, a school proprietress, said: “My husband came in late from the office at 10pm and he was preparing for a flight to Abuja the following day. We both had retired to our bedroom.
“Our home is a five – bedroom duplex and there was no electricity that night, the home was well lit because the generator was on.
”At 11.45pm, power was restored and my son, Folahanmi went to put off the generator. A few minutes after he left, he came running upstairs screaming for help.
”He had a wound on his head and was being pursued by the defendant who was armed with a knife.
”The commotion alerted my husband and I and we rushed to the anti-room upstairs where we saw the defendant and Folahanmi.
“We knelt down to plead with him and my husband instructed me to get a white envelope containing cash from the jacket of his suit.
”When the envelope was handed over to the defendant, he was dissatisfied and demanded for laptops and phones and we told him those items were downstairs.
“He, for no reason, lunged at Folahanmi with a knife and my husband stepped in to save him and he was stabbed in his neck and his chest.”
She said after her husband was stabbed, Oladapo ran downstairs where he unfortunately encountered her mother.
“My mother came out from her bedroom downstairs to investigate the source of the commotion and the defendant ran into her, stabbing her in the chest.”
“I, the maid and my sister struggled with him in the living room downstairs, he was hit on the head with a stabilizer, but he was behaving in a wild and crazy manner and very strong and hard to subdue.
“My husband and Folahanmi ran out to get help, but my husband collapsed in the premises. But Folahanmi got help from the security guard of the estate who subdued the defendant by shooting him with a gun.”
She said that Fadipe was rushed to a hospital where he gave up the ghost at 4am, her mother who came to Lagos from Ibadan for an eye operation was discharged from the hospital, but died in Ibadan from the shock and trauma of the incident two weeks later.
A pathologist, Dr Sunday Soyemi in his testimony, revealed that Fadipe was rapid and severe blood loss caused by the severe cut of the left jugular vein.
However, Oladapo, while testifying in Yoruba language in his defence, denied committing the offence.
According to him, on the night of the murder, he left a viewing centre to go to his home and he had to take a shortcut through Harmony Estate.
“When I got to the Harmony Estate, an altercation occurred between me, the security guard and four men, they beat me up, subdued me and shot at my leg.
“I fainted and woke up the hospital, I fainted again and woke up four days later at the police station,” he said.
But the trial judge, Justice Ipaye, discountenanced his defence and sentenced the convict as charged.
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