Alfred Aderibigbe, a personal nurse to ex-Osun State Governor, Isiaka Adeleke, arraigned for killing the politician was on Thursday discharged and acquitted by the court.
Aderibigbe, who treated the late Adeleke before his death, had been dragged before an Osun State High Court sitting in Osogbo, after a coroner inquest indicted him of administering drug overdose on the deceased.
WITHIN NIGERIA recalls that former governor; Rauf Aregbesola signed an executive order setting up a corona inquest to look into the cause of the death of Senator Isiaka Adeleke which he appointed Magistrate Olusegun Ayilara as head of the inquest.
The findings of the Corona Inquest revealed that Senator Isiaka Adeleke died of drug overdose coupled with an aspiration of gastric content. Magistrate Ayilara said the deceased had an administration of an overdose of sedative and analgesia by unqualified personnel, Alfred Aderibigbe, through intravenous means, which action was hastened by the presence of alcohol in the system. The deceased had patronised the nurse for over 20 years and had taken treatment from him without a doctor’s prescriptions.
Ayilara indicted the nurse, Mr. Alfred Aderibigbe, who treated Adeleke shortly before he died, as unqualified personnel and recommended that the Department of Public Prosecutions should duplicate the case file and press approbation charges against the nurse.
But Justice Ayo Oyebiyi in his judgement today, after the trial that lasted almost two and half years, declared that the prosecution could not prove that Aderibigbe killed the deceased and subsequently discharged him of any wrongdoing.
Upon his first arraignment before the court on on June 8, 2018, Aderibigbe pleaded not guilty to murder charge pressed against him.
The offence he was accused of was said to be contrary to section 316 and punishable under section 319 of the Criminal Code Law Cap.36 Law of Osun State 2003.
During the trial, Aderibigbe told the court that the drugs he administered were given to him by the deceased.
But one of the nine witnesses called by the prosecution team led by Acting Solicitor General and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Dapo Adeniji, and the then Chief Medical Director of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Akeem Lasisi, told the court that the late Adeleke died of drug overdose.
However, Soji Oyetayo, who appeared for the defendant, insisted that the prosecution failed to properly investigate the matter.
He said none of the witnesses called by the prosecution was at the scene of the alleged crime or visited the scene, adding that the prosecution did not retrieve the doctor’s prosecution that was in the custody of the late Adeleke to further prove its case.
According to him, Adeleke was in need of medical attention before the defendant was invited to attend to him, stressing that the late politician was suffering from hypertension and gout.
Justice Oyebiyi, after considering all sides to the matter, discharged and acquitted the defendant.
