A notorious former Acting Chairman of the Oyo State chapter of National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW Mukaila Lamidi, popularly called Auxiliary, was on Monday sentenced to six years imprisonment for conspiracy to commit murder, the Punch newspaper reports.
Justice Eni Esan of the Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan also jailed Saidi Kareem, Abu Kareem and Kazeem Kayode alongside Auxiliary.
The fifth accused person, Taiwo Tijani, had died in detention.
The accused had been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. However, Justice Esan ruled that the prosecuting counsel failed in his attempt to convince the court beyond reasonable doubt over the more serious charges of murder and attempted murder.
Counsel for the sentenced NURTW members, Olalekan Ojo and Adeleke Bakare, begged the judge for a light sentence, and to consider the status of Auxiliary and others as breadwinners in their various families with aged parents and other dependents.
According to Ojo, the accused had suffered enough having spent two years in jail since the trial commenced.
However, Justice Esan said the two years they had spent in jail would be removed from their six-year jail term. He did not give the accused an option to pay 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.
The NURTW is known to cause mayhem in Ibadan.
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