Lagos resident Biola Adams-Odutayo faces a seven-year prison sentence if proven guilty of driving recklessly and killing Adetunji Opaleye, co-founder and chief technical officer of Bumpa.
Ms Adams-Odutayo was charged with two counts on March 12 at the Lagos State High Court in Tinubu, Lagos State, just days after she was discharged from the hospital after the accident, the police said in a statement on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
According to reports, Mr Opayele was killed in an accident that happened at approximately 10.20 p.m. on March 4 at the entrance gate of 1004 Housing Estate, traffic light junction, along Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Ben Hundeyin, the spokesperson for the Nigerian police’s Lagos State Command, posted a copy of the indictment on X, indicating that the driver was accused of violating the state’s traffic rules.
According to the first count, Ms Adams-Odutayo was driving on the highway at the time of the collision “inconsiderately without due care and attention to other person(s) using the highway.”
The police said the act constituted an offence under Section 50(1) of the Road Traffic Laws of Lagos State, 2018.
She was charged under the second count with driving “carelessly and recklessly without due care and attention to other road users and causing the death of one Tunji Opaleye, male, aged 32.”
Section 52 of the same Lagos State Road Traffic Law was allegedly broken, according to the police.
The first count was filed under Section 50(1) of the law, which makes careless or dangerous driving illegal. According to the clause, anyone found guilty of driving on a highway without exercising appropriate care and attention or without showing reasonable concern for other people faces a punishment of N50,000. A subsequent conviction is punishable by law by three months in jail, a fine of N100,000, or both.
Mr. Opayele was born on December 20, 1992, in Lagos. He first studied law at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) after attending Lagos State Model College, Meiran.
But he became a software developer because he loved technology.
Mr. Opayele had software development positions in both Nigeria and the US before co-founding Bumpa.
Before starting the web hosting business HostCabal, he worked for the financial services company E-Settlement.
He was a co-founder of Bumpa, a company that helps small businesses automate their retail operations. Since receiving $4 million in seed funding in 2022, the startup has helped 60,000 SMEs transact more than N160 billion.
