Court remands Gov Adeleke’s appointee for murder

Olalekan Oyeyemi, a member of Osun Park Management System, was on Thursday remanded in Ile-Ife Correctional Centre by a Federal High Court, sitting in Osogbo, Osun State.

Oyeyemi, also called ‘Emir’, is an appointee of Governor Ademola Adeleke. 

The Nigeria Police Force dragged him before the court and slammed an 11-count against him.

In 2023, the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Osun State Police Command arrested him for beating a man into a coma.

At Thursday’s sitting, a few minutes after Emir was docked and the court was about to read his charge, Edmund Biriomoni, his counsel, raised the issue of jurisdiction.

Biriomoni, who had tackled the jurisdiction of the court to hear the matter and some of the counts drafted against Emir, said he had filed a preliminary objection to the murder charge pressed against his client.

“We were served with an 11-count charge. We are challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter. We are challenging the jurisdiction of the court to take the plea of the defendant on Counts 4 to 8, which bother on murder.

“We filed a preliminary objection to the first charge that has murder from number 1 to 4, and the prosecutor substituted the charge and changed the numbers we are challenging,” he said.

Responding, Umar Usman, the prosecutor from the Force Headquarters, Abuja, requested the court withdraw a charge filed before October 16, 2023, and replace it with an amended charge dated January 31, 2024.

The Umar urged the court to take the plea of the accused, having accepted the amended charge.

But Biriomoni, after reading the amended charge, asked the relief of the court to challenge verbally counts 4 to 11 of the new charge, but the court rejected the request.

The prosecutor protested that objection to the jurisdiction could only be raised after a plea of the accused had been taken, urging the court to allow the matter to proceed.

Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel, however, in his ruling, accepted the withdrawal and substitution of the charge.

He remanded the accused in Ile-Ife Correctional Centre, asking Biriomoni to file a formal application for objection to the amended charge on behalf of his client.

The matter was adjourned till March 5.