A Kwara High Court, sitting in Ilorin, has sentenced one Oyekan Adedoyin, who claimed to be a prince from Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State to six-month imprisonment for offences bordering on internet and other forms of cybercrime.
Aside from the acclaimed price, the court also sentenced one Oni Stephen Oluwaferanmi to one-year imprisonment for the same offences which were said to have contravened the state’s criminal law.
Ilorin zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had arraigned the duo of Prince Oyekan and Oni before the court on separate charges and they pleaded guilty when the charges were read to them.
After their plea, counsel to the EFCC, Andrew Akoja, led witnesses to review the facts of the two cases. The witnesses, who are operatives of the commission, narrated how the defendants were arrested based on credible intelligence.
EFCC counsel tendered items recovered from the defendants at the point of arrest in the court. The anti-graft agency listed the item to include phones, laptops and fraudulent messages printed from the defendants’ email addresses, which the court admitted in evidence.
Delivering his judgment, the presiding Judge, Sikiru Oyinloye, said that the court had carefully evaluated all the material evidence placed before it, the plea of guilt and the uncontroverted testimonies of the prosecution witnesses and that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Justice Oyinloye, however, sentenced Prince Oyekan to six-month imprisonment with an option of a fine of N150,000, and also ordered the forfeiture of his iPhone and a Dell Laptop, which the convict used to perpetrate the crime to the Federal Government.
He sentenced Oni to one-year imprisonment with an option of a fine of N350,000 and also ordered the forfeiture of the convict’s phone to the apex government.
The judge also ordered the convict to pay $775 as restitution to his victim through the EFCC within 78 hours or risk another six-month imprisonment.
