The Lagos State High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square has on Friday, April 2nd, 2025, sentenced a driver of Lagos Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Andrew Nice Ominikoron, to death by hanging for killing a 22-year-old fashion designer, Bamise Ayanwola, in 2022.
Justice Sherifat Sonaike gave the verdict.
“The deceased died from severe cerebral injury and blood forced trauma, and his actions and inactions led to her death. The law established that the person last seen with a deceased bears full responsibility for the death unless he explains how he had no hand in the death.
“In his evidence, he admitted he was alone with her in the bus and where her body was dropped and failed to return to the place to help her and ran away to another state without reporting the case,” the Judge said.
Bamise, the last child of her parents, was abducted after boarding a BRT in Lagos, Nigeria and found dead 9 days later.
The Background story of Bamise
It would be recalled that on February 26, 2022, after exiting work at Ajah area of Lagos state, Bamise boarded a BRT at Chevron axis going to Oshodi around 7:30 pm to go to visit her elder brother’s family to spend the weekend.
However, after boarding the bus, the driver flirted with her and told her to sit at the back. She was the only passenger in the bus while the interior was dark.
She also observed that at no fewer than two other male passengers entered the bus afterwards. The driver refused to pick up more passengers while there were no CCTV cameras in the bus.
Upon her being observant, Bamise contacted a friend by sending voice notes, video recordings of the bus interior with the bus plate number identifier to her friend on WhatsApp, disclosing her concerns. Her friend urged her to alight as soon as possible at the next bus stop.
Unfortunately, after further attempts by her friends and relatives to contact her via phone calls were unsuccessful.
Before this, one of her last recorded conversations with her friend was “…..Please, pray for me.” After several failed attempts to communicate via her phone, the last known sound heard after a caller picked up her phone revealed her struggling with an unidentified man. The following day, she was reported missing.
On March 7, 2022, her lifeless body was discovered naked near the Carter Bridge on Lagos Island. An eyewitness stated that Bamise was still alive after she was thrown off the BRT bus, but she couldn’t be treated or rushed to the hospital before she died.
