LAGOS — The 25 years legal practice of a Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Kole Bello, ended, yesterday, as he was sentenced to 100-year jail term by an Ikeja High Court, Lagos, which found him guilty of a 10-count charge of conspiracy and obtaining money by false pretence in respect of a land in Lagos.
Bello, 46, who was sentenced alongside an estate agent, Mr. Olayinka Ajiboluwaduro, a.k.a. Onile, 42, were found guilty of the offences preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which accused them of defrauding their victims to the tune of N10 million, while posing as agents of a property located on plot 877, BLK 34, Omole Estate, Lagos, with a fake Certificate of Occupancy.
Justice Joseph Oyewole of the Ikeja High Court, who sentenced them to 10-year imprisonment on each count, however, held that the sentence will run concurrently.
Their offences were contrary to EFCC Act , N0. 13 of 1995, as amended by Act N0. 62 of 1999.
Bello, 46, who was sentenced alongside an estate agent, Mr. Olayinka Ajiboluwaduro, a.k.a. Onile, 42, were found guilty of the offences preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which accused them of defrauding their victims to the tune of N10 million, while posing as agents of a property located on plot 877, BLK 34, Omole Estate, Lagos, with a fake Certificate of Occupancy.
Justice Joseph Oyewole of the Ikeja High Court, who sentenced them to 10-year imprisonment on each count, however, held that the sentence will run concurrently.
The sentence of the second defendant, Ajiboluwaduro, who had been in custody since 2007, will, however, commence from the day he was arrested and put in custody.
They were accused of defrauding two persons, Mark Eziubochi and Emmanuel Taylor of N10 million.
Their offences were contrary to EFCC Act , N0. 13 of 1995, as amended by Act N0. 62 of 1999.
Oyewole in his judgment held that the defendants were guilty as charged with the scale of evidence brought before the court by the 12 prosecution witnesses.
Oyewole said: “I find the testimonies of the two defendants (convicts) to be fabrications, made out to deceive the court and obscure the truth in this case and I reject their testimonies as lacking any form of credibility.
“In the circumstances, I hold that the prosecution successfully proved counts 2,4,6,8, and 10 against the defendants beyond reasonable doubt as well.
“In totality, therefore, I find each of the two defendants guilty as charged on each of counts 1-10, respectively, and I accordingly convict each of them as charged on each of the said counts 1 to 10, respectively,” the court said.
“It is also evident from the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses and the investigators that the first defendant used his supposed professional, religious and political standing to influence the victims into accepting the impostor as the authentic owner of the piece of land situate at and known a Plot 877 Blk. 34, Omole phase 2, Lagos, while the 2nd defendant worked in concert with him by putting forward a personal family relationship with the said impostor to achieve the same purpose.
“The defendants are not availed by the cloaks of professional capacity under which they both seek to hide as the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, showed that they both actively worked with the impostor to perpetrate the fraud.
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