By Onozure Dania

CHAIRMAN of Bariga branch of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Comrade Ayoola Ogunsakin, has been sentenced to one year jail term with hard labour for assault by an Ikeja Magistrate court.

The Police prosecutor, Inspector Rachael Williams, had accused Ogunsakin of assaulting a member of Self Employed Commercial Drivers Association of Nigeria, SECDAN, by inflicting injury on his body. He was charged along side Oladipupo Fakoya on a one-count charge of assault, occasioning harm.

Williams told the court that the defendants had committed the offence on May 20, 2004 at about 11:15am along Odo Oba Street, Bariga in Lagos. He said that Ogunsakin had earlier threatened to attack members of  Self Employed Commercial Drivers Association of Nigeria (SECDAN).

The prosecutor also alleged that the SECDAN members were attacked by the members of the NURTW on the said date. She further alleged that it was Ogunsakin who ordered his boys to beat the SECDAN members up and kill at least  three of them.

The Investigating Police Officer in charge of the case, Corporal Antonia Okoli, stated that both parties have been disturbing the peace of Bariga and that the DPO had tried to settle the matter several times without success. While giving evidence before the court, the IPO added that on the date of the incident after the DPO had told them to go and maintain peace, they still went back to cause trouble in the area.

In a short judgment, Magistrate Olagbegi Adelabu found Ogunsakin guilty of assaulting one Mr Obasin Ehi Yusuf, who is a member of Self Employed Commercial Drivers Association of Nigeria.  The magistrate however granted him an alternative option of N50, 000, or go to jail.  She also banned the operation of the NURTW for two years in Bariga for peace to reign.

The second defendant,  Oladipupo Fakoya was found not guilty to the charge and therefore discharged and acquitted.

In the case of the 1st defendant, Ogunsakin, she said, the defendant contradicted himself severally to the point that his evidence became totally unreliable before the court. She said the defendants’ statement with the police is distinctively different from the evidence before the court and, therefore, found Ogunsakin guilty as charged and sentenced him accordingly to one year in prison with hard labour.