A High Court in Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi State, has sentenced 30-year-old Boniface Abraham Edigbo to death by hanging for the murder of an 18-year-old secondary school student, Ogbonna Joshua.
Justice Ruth Okeh, who presided over the case, found Edigbo guilty of killing the deceased by poisoning him after sexually assaulting him. The court heard that Edigbo had lured the victim to a hotel, where he mixed a bottle of Fanta with Sniper insecticide and gave it to him to drink. The incident occurred on May 23, 2023, following their final sexual encounter the previous night at Edigbo Guest House in Abakaliki.
Until his death, Joshua was a Senior Secondary School 2 (SS2) student at Community Secondary School, Amachi, in Izzi Local Government Area of the state.
According to court proceedings, Edigbo and the victim had been in a sexual relationship since 2021. In early 2023, they reportedly made a pact to keep their relationship secret. However, when the deceased began suffering anal health complications, he confided in his school principal and some classmates, leading to public exposure of the affair.
The prosecution, led by Mrs. Ijeoma Mike-Ajanwachukwu, revealed that after the victim’s disclosure, Edigbo lured him to the hotel under the guise of reconciliation, only to poison him the next day in an attempt to silence him permanently. After the victim died, Edigbo fled the scene and confessed the act to a woman, claiming he did not intend to kill the boy but acted out of panic after their relationship was exposed.
The woman, however, alerted local youths instead of helping him flee. He was subsequently apprehended and taken back to the hotel, where the victim’s lifeless body was discovered in Room 006.
Mrs. Mike-Ajanwachukwu commended the court for delivering justice, stating that the ruling would serve as a deterrent to others engaging in such “heinous and inhuman” crimes.
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