Driver Kills, Buries Teenager Secretly

A commuter bus driver, Abdulateef Babatunde, 42,  allegedly killed a teenager in an autocrash and conspired with his conductor, Hassan Mamudu, 32,  to secretly  bury the victim at Trinity Cemetery, Ajegunle, Lagos State,  southwest Nigeria.

They have been arrested and charged to court.

The defendants, who are in prison custody, allegedly knocked down Jeremiah Samuel,18, along Ijora Road, Lagos, with their Volkswagen bus with registration number, JJJ 23 XB.

P.M.NEWS learnt that the suspects neither contacted the victim’s parents nor reported the incident to the police. Instead, they took the corpse  to Trinity Cemetery at Ajegunle, pretending to be the relations of the deceased.

It was also gathered that the duo followed due process before the management of the cemetery accepted and buried the corpse .

When it was later discovered by the police that Jeremiah who had been declared missing was knocked down, killed and secretly buried, the police arrested the driver and the conductor and took them to Trinity Police Station where they confessed that they had buried the boy in the cemetery without informing the police or the boy’s parents to avoid trouble.

The police then charged them before Yaba Magistrate’s court  for the alleged crime.

While Babatunde was charged with reckless driving and manslaughter, his conductor, Mamudu was charged with accessory to the fact of manslaughter.

They were  charged under Section 20 of the traffic law and 409 of the Criminal Code Laws of Lagos State of Nigeria.

They pleaded not guilty and the presiding Magistrate, Mrs P .A. Adekomaiya, granted them bail in the sum of N50,000 with two sureties in like sum.

The matter was adjourned till 24 October, 2012, while they were remanded in prison custody at Ikoyi pending when they meet their bail conditions.

—Cyriacus Izuekwe