Court Jails Three Men 60 Years For Defrauding Deceased Shareholder Of N45.6m

Kemisola Oye

THREE aged men, Kasumu Shakiru Ademola, Salau Omoniyi Mikailu and Ganiyu Oluyede Isola, were today, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, by a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, on four count charges of conspiracy, unlawful fund conversation and laundering of the sum of Forty-Five Million,  Six Hundred and Eighty-Six Thousand, One Hundred and Eighty-Four Naira, Seventy-Two Kobo  (N45, 686, 184. 72) only.

Justice Chukwuejekwu Aneke, who presided over the court, handed down jail terms to the convicts while delivering judgment on the charge filed against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The convicts were first arraigned alongside a stockbroking firm, CSL Stockbrokers, before the court sometime in 2019, on eight count charge. 

The convicts had pleaded not guilty to all the eight-count charges, and they were admitted to bail in various terms.

However, the convicts in 2021,  informed the court of their intentions to change their earlier not-guilty plea, and they now pleaded guilty to the charges.

Also, the prosecution informed the court of its intention to withdraw the charge against the stockbroking firm and to amend the charges against the convicts, owing to their change of plea.

Consequently, the court granted the prosecution’s request and discharged the company of the charge, while ordering the convicts to retake their plea on the amended charge.

In the amended charge, the three convicts were accused of conspiring among themselves to unlawfully convert 298,550 stocks of the deceased, the late Joseph Adeniji Adeyemi Joseph, valued at N34 million.

They were also accused of having unlawfully retained the aggregate of the sum of N9,481 million, in Guaranty Trust Bank Plc’s account No.0011453876.

Their actions, according to the prosecution, contravened sections 18(a); 15(2)(b) and 15(2)(d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act. 

At the sentencing of the convicts today, their lawyers, including, O. Muyideen and A. Olufemi, in their allucutors, pleaded with the court to tamper justice with mercy in sentencing the convicts by considering that they have been in detention since 2018 when they were arrested.

The counsel also told the court to consider the timely guilty plea of the convicts, whom they said were above 60 years, adding that the convicts have turned a new leaf and promised never to engage in any criminal act in future. 

Delivering judgment, Justice Aneke, while considering the lawyers’ allucutor, sentenced the convicts to five years each in each of the four counts totalling 20 years for each of the convicts.  

The judge also ordered that the jail term commences from the date they have been in custody and run concurrently. 

The judge further ordered the convicts to make restitution of the proceeds of the crime to the family of the late Joseph Adeniji Adeyemi Joseph.

Eighteen-Eleven Media