A High Court sitting in Lafia, Nasarawa State, has sentenced gospel singer Timileyin Ajayi to death by hanging for the brutal murder of Salome Adaidu, a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Delivering the judgement, Justice Simon Aboki stated that Ajayi was guilty of culpable homicide, an offence punishable by death under Section 221 of the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria. The court heard how the singer confessed to killing Adaidu in a fit of anger upon discovering that she was allegedly cheating on him.
Ajayi, in a statement, said, “I didn’t plan to kill her. She is always cheating and hiding things from me. When I discovered she was cheating after seeing messages on her phone, I became enraged and killed her.”
The gospel singer had pleaded not guilty to the charge of culpable homicide, despite being apprehended in January with Adaidu’s severed head in a polythene bag in Agwan Sarki, Orozo, an area bordering Nasarawa and the Federal Capital Territory. Under interrogation, he claimed he had been dating Adaidu for a year prior to the incident.
The deceased’s family, however, rejected this assertion, stating that their daughter was never romantically involved with Ajayi. The court proceedings concluded with the death sentence being passed, a ruling that has brought a measure of justice for the family of Salome Adaidu and drawn attention to the tragic consequences of gender-based violence.
