A driver, Emeka Sunday, has been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command for allegedly using a broken bottle to stab his passenger, Michael Ajibola, to death during an argument over transport fare in the state.
PUNCH Metro gathered that Sunday was conveying Ajibola alongside other passengers from Sango Ota to their destinations in Oshodi but on getting to the Airport Road bus stop, he told the remaining passengers in the bus to disembark from his vehicle with a promise to pay for their transport fare when they get another bus to convey them to Oshodi.
Things, however, took another dimension when the driver, after collecting N500 for the fare to convey the passengers, including Ajibola to Oshodi, offered to pay them N100 each to board a bus from the Airport Road to Oshodi.
The passengers were said to have refused Sunday’s offer, noting that the journey from the point they disembarked to Oshodi would cost more than he was offering.
The situation led to an argument between the Sunday and his passengers, numbering five, and in the process, the driver got into a fight with Ajibola.
During the fight, Sunday reached for a bottle, broke it and allegedly used it in stabbing Ajibola, who fell to the ground and got soaked in a pool of his blood.
He was said to have died due to the injuries he sustained during the attack.
However, other passengers, who witnessed the incident, apprehended the driver and handed him over to policemen at the Shogunle Police Station.
The Lagos State Police Command arraigned Sunday before Magistrate O.Y Adefope at the Yaba Magistrate’s Court on one count of murder.
The prosecutor, Haruna Magaji, told the court that the offence Sunday committed was punishable under Section 233 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2015.
The charge read, “That you, Emeka Sunday, on January 30, 2023, around 8.30 pm along Oshodi Expressway, Airport bus stop, Ikeja, Lagos, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did unlawfully kill Michael Ajibola by stabbing him with a broken bottle and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 233 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2015.”
The defendant’s plea was not taken.
Magaji prayed the court to remand the defendant at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre pending the outcome of legal advice from the office of the Directorate of Public Prosecution.
Granting the request, magistrate Adefope ordered the defendant to be remanded in the correctional centre pending the DPP’s legal advice.
The case was adjourned till March 28, 2023.
