Crime & PUNISHMENT
Court Remands Blogger for Cyberbullying, Libelling MFM Founder, Olukoya
Wale lgbintade
The Lagos Division of the Federal High Court has ordered the remand of Ayotunde Richard, a blogger and former member of Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries (MFM), in Ikoyi Prison custody, pending the hearing and determination of his bail application.
Also remanded alongside Richard was Adewale Ajimisogbe, charged alongside the blogger in a 12-count charge of conspiracy, cyber-bullying and libel.
Justice Lewis-Allagoa ordered the remand of the two defendants after they pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
While the two defendants were jointly charged on three counts of conspiracy to commit felony to wit: cyberstalking, libel and defamation, the first defendant (Richard) was slammed with nine counts of defamation.
The prosecutor, Nosa Waltson Uhumwangho, told the court that the duo committed the alleged offences between December 2023 and February 2024.
He told the court that the defendants, through a blogging platform named ‘Postreporters’, a social network, made a report with the caption: ‘He is a criminal and behind all illegal acts – Ex-MFM Church singer sues founder, Daniel Olukoya, others, seeks N15.5 billion in damages over illegal detention, breach of human rights’.
The prosecutor also alleged that the blogger posted on another social media platform, ‘Moment of Truth’, with the caption ‘Daniel Olukoya the Police Pastor’, ‘Mountain of Police and Alagbon Ministries’, ‘A powerless clergy who depends on Ayoleyi Tawose in order to deal with his perceived enemies’.
The blogger accused the MFM general overseer of lying to his former RCCG pastor to flush him out of the church.
The two defendants denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges. Following their not-guilty plea, the prosecutor asked for a trial date while urging the court to remand them in prison custody, pending when their bail applications will be heard and determined.
However, the defendants’ lawyer, Sesi Hundeyin, pleaded with the court for a short date to bring his clients’ bail applications.
He also pleaded with the court to remand his clients in police custody until their bail applications were heard. But the prosecutor vehemently opposed the request, arguing that the police remand facility was overstretched.
The judge ordered the defendants’ remand in prison custody and adjourned the case until March 21 for a hearing of their bail application.
I Fainted After Delivering Ransom to Kidnappers, Witness Tells Court
Funke Olaode
The prosecution witness, Mohammed Buhari, has told the Ikeja Division of the Lagos High Court how alleged kidnappers called him to drop a ransom at Ojuelegba road following the kidnap of his boss’ child.
Shortly after dropping off the ransom, he fainted and only woke up in his house the following day, Buhari said.
The witness testified before Justice Adenike Coker at the ongoing trial of three suspects (Lima Auwal, Abdullah Usman, and Seidu Abbas), who allegedly kidnapped the nine-year-old son of his boss. The police arrested them with the ransom they collected from Buhari.
The trio of Auwal, Usman and Abbas were alleged of kidnapping the boy at about 7:30 p.m. at Ajayi Street, Idi-Araba, Mushin, in Lagos on November 4, 2022.
At the last proceeding on February 7, the father (Mr Aliu Abubakar) of the kidnapped boy recounted the ordeal his son went through. He said the boy’s life had not been normal since then. The court heard that the boy was traumatised following his release and could not speak well.
The Lagos government had arraigned the defendants on a two-count charge of conspiracy to kidnap and kidnapping.
However, at the resumed hearing, the witness gave a vivid account of how he followed the kidnapper’s instructions to drop the ransom inside a tyre placed by the roadside towards Ojuelegba.
Led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Ms Titi Adeyegbe, the witness recounted that after the closing of work, he drove home the father of the kidnapped boy.
Buhari said they did not meet Abubakar’s wife and his boss’ brother, Ibrahim, at home but learnt that they had gone out searching for the boy when the child did not return home from school on a Friday.
Buhari said he joined Ibrahim in the search and slept overnight on the street.
“My boss went to report to the police. But on the second day, I got a text message. I went straight to show my boss, Abubakar,” Buhari explained. “The message was that, ‘Your son is with us. We needed $3000 and N200,000’. I later got a call and the voice said, ‘Oga na we carry your son’.”
He said, “I asked if I can speak to the boy. He gave the phone to the boy and I asked how he is. He responded fine. They didn’t call me again till Sunday morning when the negotiation continued.”
Buhari added, “He spoke to me in Hausa language. I told him we are both speaking Hausa. He asked how much I have with me and I said N400,000. He said he would tell me where to get the boy that I should follow their instruction. When I got the money, I put it inside black nylon. Again, they called me back around 7 o’clock in the evening and said that having involved the law enforcement agency (police), they would not call me again.”
But the accused contacted Buhari again.
“They called me again around 10:00 p.m. to bring the money. I was told to go to the front of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). He told me to move towards Ojuelegba road,” said the prosecution witness. “He asked if I have seen tyre placed by the roadside by vulcanizer. He assured me that I would see the boy.”
Buhari said when he did not see the boy as promised by the abductors, he passed out and only woke up in front of his house.
When cross-examined by the defendant’s counsel, Ms Rukayat Owolabi, Buhari stated that the phone number used to call him began with 08024, and he could not remember the full digits.
The witness told the court that he used to see the third defendant in Abubakar’s house.
The judge adjourned the case until May 8 for further hearing and urged all parties involved to maintain peace, as the second defendant’s lawyer informed the court that there might be mayhem in the community.
Court Refuses Honeywell’s Application Seeking to Amend Claim
Wale Igbintale
Justice Yelim Bogoro of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court on Monday declined an application seeking to amend the pleas and claims by Anchorage Leisure Ltd and its sister companies against Ecobank Nigeria Ltd.
The upheld the argument of Ecobank’s counsel Kunle Ogunba (SAN) in the suit marked FHC/L/CS/352/2023.
The parties in the suit are Anchorage, Siloam Global Limited, and Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, as plaintiffs and respondents, and Ecobank, as defendant and counterclaimant.
Anchorage is owned by or linked to businessman Oba Otudeko (also sued as a defendant in the counterclaim filed by Ecobank).
At the resumption of proceedings, Benjamin Nwosu appeared for the plaintiffs and the first to third defendants in the counterclaim, while Ogunba appeared for the defendant and counterclaimant.
Elijah Akefe appeared for the fourth defendant in the counterclaim, C.I. Umeche for the fifth defendant, and O. Akinduro represented the sixth defendant.
The plaintiffs had filed an application dated October 23, 2023, seeking to amend their Writ of Summons and all other originating processes in the suit.
But, refusing the application, the judge held that it was overreaching as it was filed to change the plaintiffs’ case.
The court observed that the plaintiffs had deleted the admission contained in the processes through the proposed amendment and that the application was filed to override Ecobank’s application for summary judgment, noting that Ecobank’s application for summary judgment was filed due to the plaintiffs’ admission.
The court consequently struck out the application for lacking merit.
Following arguments by the parties on the priority of pending applications to be heard, the court ruled that it would hear all pending applications (ripe for hearing) on the next adjourned date, including Ecobank’s application for summary judgment.
The judge adjourned the case until April 17.
Federal High Court Judges Begin 2024 Easter Vacation on Friday
Wale Igbintade
The Federal High Court of Nigeria has announced its 2024 Easter Vacation and Roster for Vacation Judges.
According to a circular signed by Justice John Terhemba Tsoho, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, the court will begin its Easter vacation from March 22 to April 8.
The statement said the court would resume sitting on April 9 in all judicial divisions, adding that during the break, the Abuja, Lagos, and Port-Harcourt divisions will remain open “only for cases of extreme urgency.”
“It is essential to stress that, during the vacation, only matters relating to enforcement of fundamental rights; arrest or release of vessels and matters that concern dire national interest are to be entertained by vacation judges,” the statement said.
Lagos ‘Beastly’ Paedophile Gets Life Imprisonment for Defiling 11-year-old Girl
Funke Olaode
The Ikeja Division of the Lagos High Court, presided over by Justice Rahman Oshodi, has sentenced a man, Rasheed Wasiu, to life imprisonment for having sexual intercourse with his neighbour’s eleven-year-old daughter (name withheld).
The judge convicted Wasiu in a defilement suit filed by the Lagos government.
In handing down the judgment, Oshodi, who held that the offence was grave and attracted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, insisted that the convicted Wasiu lied during his evidence before the court.
“Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence against you, you continued to deny your offence. At sentencing, you showed no remorse. The evidence shows that you had sexual intercourse with an eleven-year-old girl,” said the judge.
Oshodi added, “She was your neighbour’s daughter. She was, to your knowledge, a child. You grabbed her in the toilet, pushed her to the wall and had sexual intercourse with her in a beastly manner. This is unacceptable. You must be ashamed and punished according to the mandatory sentence.”
The judge added, “Therefore, the sentence I pass upon you is one of life imprisonment. You shall be registered as a sex offender in the Lagos State Sexual Offenders Register.”
In the charge designated LD/8444C/2018, dated December 7, 2018, the Lagos government accused the convicted Wasiu of defiling the survivor on or about March 9, 2018, at about 8:00 p.m. at the minor’s residence. Wasiu had pleaded not guilty to the charge when he was arraigned on December 10, 2021.
In an earlier arraignment on June 13, 2019, the convict claimed he was elsewhere at the time of the alleged sexual assault.
During the trial, the government called four witnesses to establish its case against the convict, while the defence.
The prosecution had tendered three documents as exhibits, namely, the extrajudicial statement of the survivor who testified as a prosecution witness (PW3), the extrajudicial statement of the survivor’s father who testified as prosecution witness four (PW4), and the defendant’s extrajudicial statement who had testified as defence witness one (DW1).
In his argument, the convict’s counsel, Yusuf Oyebanji, urged the court to discharge and acquit Wasiu because the prosecution was unable to establish his client’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the defence of alibi deflated the defilement allegation.
But the prosecutor, through its lawyers, B.T. Boye, O. Aluko, and I.D. Solarin, insisted that it produced direct eyewitness and circumstantial evidence to justify the defendant’s conviction for defilement.
Taking a position, the judge who held that in criminal law, the prosecution must establish a crime against the defendant referred to section 135 (1) of the Evidence Act 2011 to state that the standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt.
“Each element of this crime must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Any doubt must be resolved in favour of the defendant. The charge of defilement occurs when a person has sexual intercourse with a child. A child cannot consent to sexual activities,” said Oshodi.
The judge added, “In law, where a witness testifies on a material fact in controversy, in this case, whether the prosecutrix was a child, and the defence does not cross-examine the witnesses on this point, I can consider the silence as acceptance that the defendant does not dispute the fact.
He explained that there “is consistent evidence that the prosecutrix (PW3) was 11 as of March 2018, when the events” that led to this prosecution occurred, stressing, “I have accepted this as accurate.”
“Accordingly,” said Oshodi, “I judge that the prosecution has established beyond reasonable doubt that the prosecutrix (PW3) was a child as of March 2018. It is undisputed that the prosecutrix (PW3) and the defendant lived in the same house at 18 Mustapha Street, Olodi, Apapa, Lagos. The crime scene is the general toilet in the house. It is in the backyard.
“The IPO (PW2) described it to the court’s satisfaction. He said he visited it. He stated that the bathroom was beside the toilet, and they were both dark because there was no lighting in the backyard. The prosecutrix (PW3) explained that she went to the toilet because she was pressed.”
The judge rejected the defence of alibi and declared that the prosecution had proved the charge of defilement against the defendant beyond reasonable doubt.
