Barely three years after their arrest, an Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure, on Monday, struck out criminal charges against two suspected EndSARS protesters, Kemisola Ogunniyi and Bukunmi Ayodele, in the state.
Justice Kuteyi, who presided over the court, struck out the case – AK/3C/2021- after the prosecuting counsel, Hellen Falowo, sought an application to withdraw the charges against the duo of Ms Ogunniyi and Ms Ayodele.
Ms Falowo, who appeared in the court, said that it had been very difficult for the prosecution to locate the vital witnesses needed to prosecute the two defendants before the court.
Tope Temokun, the counsel to the two defendants, did not oppose the application of the state prosecution when the case came up for mentioning.
Mr Temokun, through a lawyer in his Chambers, Adedotun Adegoroye, had noted that the five-count charge filed against the defendants “robbed them their freedom” since October 2020.
Reacting to the verdict, the renowned legal practitioner lamented how the two females were kept in prison custody for about nine months and dragged to court for three years.
“After close to three years, the State woke up today to realize that it did not have witness or evidence to prosecute these youths having wasted their precious youthful years since 2020.
“We must not be tired to take the powers to task and if we have abandoned these youths to their fate, who knows what would have happened?
“Since the year 2021, when we began to handle the case, we have insisted they were innocent. The charges against her were phantom charges. Today, history vindicates us,” he declared.
Recall that Ms Ogunniyi was arrested on her way to the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), to collect money for her mother’s treatment when she was accosted and sized by the men of the Nigerian Army at random and handed over to the police for investigation.
The security agencies immediately accused her to be part of those who set the election campaign office of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on fire during the ENDSARS protest that took place in October 2020.
She was, however, detained by the police before being charged to the Magistrate Court in Akure on conspiracy to commit felony and arson, riotous assembly, stealing, and malicious damage.
But the court declined jurisdiction on the case based on the gravity of the offences.
A fresh charge was later filed against her and others by the government at the High Court, Akure.
On June 16, 2021, Ms Ogunniyi gave birth in prison to a baby boy but after public outcry from human activists, she was released to her counsel, Mr Temokun, from the Surulere Prison.
Justice Omolara Adejumo of the Ondo State High Court ordered her release on “compassionate ground”, given that the christening of her newly born should not hold inside the prison.