Killers of Cynthia Osokuga sentenced to death by hanging

The convicts, Okwuom Nwabufo and Olisaeloka Ezike, were found guilty by the trial judge, Justice Olabisi Akinlade, who pronounced that they should be hung by the neck until they were dead.

The two convicts were charged with the murder of Osokogu who was then a 25-year-old postgraduate student of Nasarawa State University, at a hotel in FESTAC Town after they had lured her from her base in Abuja to Lagos.

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The case was very much celebrated then due to the method the men used in luring the lady on July 21, 2012, by Nwabufo who she had met and befriended on the social media.

The pretty Cynthia Osokuga before her death

Photo Credit: Total Media

Nwabufo was said to have paid for the deceased’s flight ticket from Abuja and lodged her in Room C1 at Cosmilla Hotel, Lake View Estate, Festac Town, where he later, in connivance with his cousin, Ezike, murdered her and stole her valuables.

It was gathered that the convicts had drugged the lady by putting Rohypnol (a powerful tranquilizer which is about 10 times more potent than Valium), which they put in a pack of Ribena drink and gave to her.

After she drank the drug-laced drink, the accused allegedly chained her hands to her back and secured them with a padlock.

They also chained her legs, stuffed her mouth with a handkerchief and fastened a tape across her mouth to prevent her from making any sound.

After that, they were said to have raped her severally before stealing her two Blackberry mobile phones, jewelry, sex vibrator, international passport, money and a pair of shoes.

Nwabufo and Ezike were later arrested following evidence from the CCTV installed in the hotel and arranged by the Lagos State Government on February 8, 2013, on six counts of conspiracy, murder, and stealing, contrary to sections 231, 221 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011.

They were arraigned along with a pharmacist, Orji Osita, who was accused of dispensing Rohypnol to the convicts without a doctor’s prescription as well as Ezike's brother, Nonso, who was accused of being in possession of the two stolen Blackberry mobile phones.

Cynthia Osokuga before her death

Photo Credit: Total Media

In the judgment delivered on Thursday, March 23, 2017, Justice Akinlade convicted Nwabufo and Ezike as charged by the state while discharging and acquitting Osita and Nonso on the grounds that the state did not prove the charges of recklessness and negligence preferred against them beyond reasonable doubts.

Justice Akinlade relied on the oral evidence of 10 witnesses called and the 17 exhibits tendered by the prosecution as well as the confessional statements of the accused persons, among whom were two receptionists at the Cosmilla Hotel who booked the convicts into the hotel on the night of July 21, 2012.

In her judgment, Justice Akinlade held that the circumstantial evidence placed before the court by the state were 'cogent, complete, unequivocal, compelling and leads to the irresistible conclusion that the accused persons and no one else committed the crime.'

“The first and second defendants were positioned at the scene of the crime at Cosmilla Hotel. The circumstantial evidence against the first and second defendants is compelling and cogent and leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that they killed the deceased.

It is on record that the first and second defendants made confessional statements describing how they caused the death of the deceased.

I pronounce the judgment of this court upon you, Okwumo Nwabufo and Olisaeloka Ezike, that both of you be hung by the neck until you are dead,” Justice Akinlade declared.

There is justice at last for Cynthia Osokuga

Photo Credit: Total Media

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After pronouncing them guilty, she also sentenced them to 14 years imprisonment for the offense of conspiracy, three years imprisonment for stealing while she sentenced them to death by hanging for the offense of murder.