A Lagos State High Court has sentenced a BRT driver, Andrew Nice Ominikoron, to death by hanging after he was found guilty of raping and killing a 22-year-old fashion designer, Oluwabamise Ayanlowo, in 2022.
The death sentence was delivered by Justice Serifat Sonaike on Friday, May 2, 2025, who ruled that the state government, through its prosecutors, had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed the offence.
Ominikoron, 47, was arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy to commit felony, rape, murder, and sexual assault.
While delivering judgement, Justice Sonaike declared:
“For the death of Oluwabamise Ayanwola, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy upon you.”
Justice Sonaike held that Ominikoron was guilty of multiple offences, with sentences ranging from three years to death by hanging.
On the charge of conspiracy to commit felony with rape and murder, the judge discharged and acquitted the Lagos BRT driver, noting that the prosecution failed to prove he acted in concert with others.
However, on count five, involving the sexual assault of one Victoria Anieke, Sonaike found Ominikoron guilty and sentenced him to three years imprisonment.
Bamise was declared missing on February 26, 2022, after boarding a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
vehicle at about 7pm from the Ajah area of Lagos to Oshodi and whose body was later found by the police.
According to the prosecution, during the journey, the victim was said to have observed that the driver was not picking up other passengers at subsequent bus stops along the route.
Disturbed by the situation, she sent a message to her friend and sent voice notes detailing her predicament. It was the last time her friend and family members heard from her and she was later declared missing.
She was later found dead on Carter Bridge, according to the Lagos State Police Command.
In the course of the trial, a witness Goddy Ihende, a Superintendent of Police,
told the court that Ominikoron always raped his victims in secluded places.
Ihende also told the court that apart from Bamise, Ominikoron attempted to rape one Doctor Victoria Anieke.
He said the incident happened on December 29, 2021, when Anieke, who resided in Delta State, came to visit her parents and friend, who resided in the Ketu and Ikorodu areas of Lagos, respectively.
Ihende, who was the seventh prosecution witness, told Justice Sonaike that the modus operandi of Ominikoron was to carry his victims alone and go to secluded places to rape them.
The witness, who was led in evidence by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Dr Babajide Martins, said he took over Ominikoron’s case on March 7, 2022, from the Department of State Services.
The prosecution stated that Ominikoron conspired with others now at large and forcefully had sexual intercourse with Bamise after which he murdered her.
Ominikoron who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was arrested in the course of investigation after Oluwabamise’s gruesome murder and was subsequently arraigned on four counts charge of rape, conspiracy with others at large and the murder of Bamise.
