According to a statement released in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Thursday, the parents of a Nigerian student convicted in the United Kingdom say their son is innocent. Mr Aderinkola Akinrinola and Mrs Olayinka Akinrinola are asking the authorities to review the verdict against Oluwatobiloba Akinrinola.
The record so far is short. A UK court convicted him of robbery and blackmail on June 19, 2026. He is held in a Nottingham prison pending sentencing on July 27.
The parents’ position
The couple allege the conviction rests mostly on circumstantial evidence and on their son’s association with the principal suspect, Richile Vagnu. They say he met Vagnu in October 2025, a few weeks into his first year at Leicester University, and describe the relationship as one of acquaintances.
The statement says the only evidence put before the court was a photograph of the two together and CCTV footage showing Akinrinola entering the venue of a party on November 21, 2025, the night of the robbery. The parents say the footage does not place him at the scene of the crime.
They accept he was at the party. “He was never part of the robbery,” they write. In the family’s account, he went into the room briefly, asked the main suspect what was happening and walked out, saying he did not want to be involved. They say some of the victims confirmed this in court, and that one testified he seemed to be trying to help them.
Items and transfers
The victims said they were robbed of jackets and footwear. The parents say police searched their son’s apartment and recovered none of the items.
Police told the court, according to the statement, that they found evidence of money moving from the victims to accounts held by two other suspects, Vagnu and Ayomide Ibraheem. The parents say no equivalent evidence turned up in their son’s bank records.
They also object to the treatment of the co-suspects. Ibraheem, whom the victims identified as the person stopping them from leaving the room, was not convicted alongside their son, the statement says. It adds that police did not produce some of the other suspects in court, saying they had not honoured invitations.
Contact with police
A few days after the robbery, the family says, Akinrinola saw an online video by a TikTok influencer that linked him to the attack. He contacted police voluntarily and offered to be questioned. Officers told him there was no need, as he was not a suspect.
The parents describe him as a calm and sociable young man with no previous criminal record. They have also appealed to legal institutions and human rights organisations to look into the circumstances of the conviction.
