Justice Simon Aboki had sentenced gospel singer Oluwatimileyin Ajayi to death by hanging on June 26, 2025, for the brutal killing of his girlfriend, Salome Adaidu,.
Salome was 24 at the time of her death and also a youth corps member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The significant judgment was pronounced at the High Court in Lafia Nasarawa state capital
It will be recalled that In January 2025, Salome Adaidu was murdered , body dismembered during a visit to Ajayi’s house in the Papalana axis of New Karshi, located in the Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. Ajayi was arrested on Sunday, January 12, 2025, after being caught by locals and the police while trying to dispose of the victim’s severed head. The state prosecutor presented five witnesses and 19 exhibits. This included video and photographic evidence of the crime scene, the weapons used (knives and a machete), and Ajayi’s written confessional statement.
At the trial Ajayi said that he had been unconscious after having spent some time with his girlfriend and therefore did not know what he was doing when he wrote his statement of confession. However, Justice Aboki rejected this argument, pointing out that the evidence demonstrated that the act was deliberate, had been premeditated and had been proven beyond reasonable doubt. Ajayi was convicted on one count of culpable homicide under section 221 of the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria, a statute which imposes a mandatory death sentence. In accordance with legal procedure, the court allowed the defence a standard period of 90 days within which to file an appeal before the death warrant could be sent to the state governor for his executive signature.
The trial and the later conviction of Oluwatimileyin Ajayi have brought to light highly disturbing facts about the murder of 24-year-old NYSC member Salome Adaidu. After he was arrested, Ajayi first admitted to having committed the crime. As stated in the reports made during his police interrogation, he said that he had killed Salome in a fit of anger after going through her mobile phone and seeing what he regarded as infidelity.
On January 12, 2025, community members and local police apprehended Ajayi near a church in Orozo. He was caught red-handed carrying a bag containing Salome’s severed head as he attempted to dispose of it. A mobile video of the interception quickly went viral across Nigerian social media networks, showing crowds interrogating a stunned Ajayi.
During the accelerated four-day trial handled by the Nasarawa State Ministry of Justice, the prosecution successfully built an airtight case using 19 distinct exhibits:
— The state offered the physical instruments that were used to kill and dismember Salome, namely a large machete designated as Exhibit N1 and some smaller kitchen knives designated as Exhibit N2.
• The main basis of the prosecution’s case was based very much on Exhibit L, which was Ajayi’s detailed written confessional statement that he gave shortly after his arrest and for which no objection was made.
• Graphic photographic and video recordings of the residence of Ajayi in the area of Papaladna were submitted as Exhibits F1 and F2 in order to demonstrate the great brutality of the crime.
Joseph Tuku-Bisong, who was acting as Ajayi’s lawyer, tried to get Ajayi acquitted on the grounds that the circumstantial evidence had no proper “probative value” and pointed out that the prosecution had not provided a complete forensic report to confirm that all the pieces of the dismembered body belonged solely to the victim. Moreover, Ajayi also tried to retract his original plea. He told the court that he had “passed out” after having spent some intimate time with Salome and that he was completely unconscious both at the time of her death and when he signed his police statement. However, Justice Simon Aboki strongly rejected this defence, stating that such a systematic dismembering of a human body could only be carried out with conscious and deliberate intent. Referred to Ajayi as a “butcher”, the judge decided that the crime had been carefully planned and premeditated.
Although Ajayi said that they had been dating for about a year, the members of Salome’s family openly denied that Ajayi had ever been her official boyfriend.
Ajayi’s mandatory 90-day period for appealing had expired on 26 September 2025, with his legal team having failed to file an appeal; as a result, the Nasarawa State Ministry of Justice then proceeded with forwarding the official recommendation to Governor Abdullahi Sule requesting that he sign the warrant for Ajayi’s physical execution.
If one is to fully understand the seriousness of the case brought against Oluwatimileyin Ajayi, then it is essential to look into the horrific characteristics of the crime scene, the victim’s real background, the highly symbolic moves made by the court, and the high-stakes legal disputes that came after his first attempt to appeal.
While initial media reports simply stated that Salome Adaidu was dismembered, the evidence introduced during the trial revealed the extreme depravity of the act:
• Forensic evidence and police documentation revealed that Ajayi did not just kill Salome; he methodically dismembered her body into over 50 individual pieces.
• He put each of these body parts individually into separate polythene bags and kept them in his house in Papalana.
Since the body parts were inside his house, Justice Simon Aboki applied the rigorous legal principle known as ‘The Last Seen Principle’. According to Nigerian law, since Salome was last seen alive when she entered his home, the onus was entirely passed to Ajayi to prove that he was not the murderer, a proof which his defence was unable to provide.
A truly tragic aspect which came to light as a result of the trial was that Ajayi’s whole account of having an ‘unfaithful relationship’ was entirely made up in order to justify the crime.
Ojomachenwu Adaidu, Salome’s mother, made the following statement in an emotional interview with The Punch: Salome had never been Ajayi’s girlfriend, and in fact she didn’t care for men who kept beards (since Ajayi did).
• Salome was in a committed, long-term relationship with a pharmacist and her family had already started making arrangements to give their official wedding announcement as soon as her NYSC service period was over.
• Salome was an outstanding graduate and spent her year of service at NICON Insurance in Abuja, where she had told her mother that she wanted to return to school to study medicine and become a medical doctor.
The gravity of the trial was underscored by ancient legal traditions rarely witnessed in modern high court sittings:
When Justice Simon Aboki had found Ajayi guilty of culpable homicide in accordance with Section 221, he put on his traditional red robe and immediately broke his judicial pen after delivering the sentence. This symbolic act has existed for centuries and stands as a reminder that the instrument used to pass a sentence of death can never be used again, highlighting the finality and full seriousness of taking a human life under the law.
Following the initial trial, the case shifted into a complex legal and political battleground:
• Ajayi’s legal team at first failed to make use of the compulsory 90-day statutory period for appealing, this deadline expiring on 26 September 2025. Yet in late 2025 his defence team submitted an emergency application to the Court of Appeal, asking the court for an “Extension of Time” and “Leave to Appeal” without being within the time limit. This procedural move halted the immediate carrying out of the sentence.
Because of the legal delays, Salome’s father, Engineer Samson Adaidu, addressed a public appeal to the Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule. He strongly asked the governor to accelerate the approval of the death warrant and insisted that Ajayi should be executed in public. The family believed that a normal hanging taking place behind closed prison doors is not sufficient and that a public execution is necessary as a serious deterrent to the increasing tide of horrific gender-based violence in Nigeria.
