An Ikeja Special Offences Court on Tuesday, September 21, sentenced a 23-year-old chef, Joshua Usulor, to 28 years imprisonment for killing a lawyer, Mrs Feyisayo Obot in an hotel room in Lagos, while trying to steal from her to offset his outstanding hotel bills.
Mrs. Feyisayo Obot, 34, an employee of an Abuja-based non-governmental organisation, Save the Children, was murdered by Joshua Usulor on January 26, 2019 at the Citiheights Hotel, Opebi where both of them lodged but in different rooms. She was in Lagos to write a project management examination.
The prosecution, led by Mrs O.A. Bajulaiye-Bishi, told the court that Usulor, a resident of Number 30, Fadiya Street, Ketu, Lagos, sneaked into the deceased’s hotel room to steal her money and her phones in order to offset his outstanding hotel bill.
The deceased struggled with him but was overpowered. He then stabbed her with a sharp knife on the stomach and used the same knife to slit her throat. Confirming that, Mrs Obot was dead, he made away with her phones and a cash sum of twenty six thousand Naira (26,000).
The suspect while interrogated, confessed to commiting the crime; he has never met Mrs Obot until the day he attacked her and that he robbed the deceased to enable him offset his hotel bill having spent two days above the one day he paid for.
Usulor was arraigned on a count charge of murder contrary to Section 223 of the Criminal Law of Lagos 2015.
Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo sentenced Usulor after he approached the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) for a plea bargain agreement in which he would plead guilty to the crime.
The DPP had in the agreement approved a term of 21 years’ imprisonment which would begin from the date of Usulor’s remand.
However, during Tuesday’s proceedings, the judge rejected the proposed prison term, saying that it was too lenient and increased the prison term to 30 years by Section 75 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law conferred on her.
She eventually reduced Usulor’s prison sentence to 28 years following plea for leniency by his counsel, Mr Spurgeon Ataene who submitted a plea, that Usulor was remorseful and a young man with a promising future.
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