Justice Sikiru Oyinloye of the Kwara State High Court, sitting in Ilorin has sentenced a 33-year-old Tanzania-based herder, Tunde Olagunju, and two others to various jail terms over offences bordering on love scam and cybercrime.
The two other convicts are Hassan Olarewaju, 29, and an Ilorin-based bricklayer, Ojo Adewale.
The Ilorin Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had on Monday arraigned the trio on separate charges, to which they pleaded guilty.
Following the plea of guilt entered by the defendants, Aliyu Adebayo who prosecuted for the EFCC in the case against Tunde drew the attention of the court to the plea bargain agreement entered by the defendant while urging the court to convict and sentence the defendant based on his admittance of guilt and the evidence before it.
Similar scenario was what played out in the case against Hassan and Ojo, when Andrew Akoja who represented the EFCC in the two cases asked the court to take judicial notice of the guilty plea and the plea bargain agreements entered by the defendants as well as the evidence tendered against them in sentencing them.
Delivering judgment on the cases, Justice Oyinloye said that he had carefully considered the facts and circumstances of the matter, most especially the charges, the plea of guilt entered by the defendants, evidence tendered without objection and the confessional statements of the defendants.
He said the defence counsel had failed to neutralise the allegations brought against the defendants.
Consequently, he held that the court found the defendants guilty of the offences.
Justice Oyinloye sentenced Tunde to two years imprisonment with option of fine of N650,000 and ordered that the sum of $1,500 which he benefited from the crime as well as the iphone used to perpetrate the crime be forfeited to the federal government.
Similarly, Ojo was sentenced to one year imprisonment on count one with option of fine of N250,000 and one year imprisonment on count two with option of fine of N250,000.
In a similar vein , Hassan was sentenced to one-year imprisonment with option of fine of N300,000.
Culled from the Leadership News Nigeria
