Popular Lagos Land Speculator, 79, Jailed For Duping Customer N6m
Posted on September 5, 2018
PAUL IYOGHOJIE
A 79 year-old land speculator, Chief Ganiyu Lamina has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for collecting the sum of N6million from one Okechukwu Obaeri and sold to him two plots of land at Ogombo Town knowing they belong to another person.
The Septuagenarian convict, a resident of Ogombo Town in Ajah, Lagos, was in 2013 charged to court for the offence but was jailed recently by Magistrate O.O. Martins at the Igbosere Magistrate court, Lagos after she found the convict guilty of the two count charges of obtaining money under false pretence and stealing preferred against him by the police at the Zone 2 command, Lagos during the trial spanning about five year and six months.
Magistrate Martins also directed that the convict must refund the N6 million in dispute back to the complainant on or before the expiration of his jail terms with a directive that the sentence would run concurrently.
Police counsel, Francis Igbinosa had informed the court in charge No K/31/2013 that the journey to jail started for Lamina in June, 2012 when he tricked the complainant and collected N6 million from him and sold those two plots of land to him knowing full well that the land did not belong to him.
Igbinosa said that when the complainant mobilised workers to the land to start development, a man who claimed to be the owner of the land surfaced and chased the complainant away from the land and warned him not set his foot on the land again because he never sold the land to anybody.
He said that following the development, the complainant reported the incident to the police at the Zone 2, Command, Lagos who arrested the convict.
Igbinosa further told the court that the convict deliberately sold the land to the complainant just to defraud him of his hard earned money.
He said the offences committed were under sections 312 and 285 of the criminal laws of Lagos State, 2011.
Lamina pleaded not guilty to the charges in the open court and was admitted to bail.
Magistrate Martins, however, during the trial found the convict guilty as charged of obtaining money under false pretence and stealing and subsequently sentenced him to six years imprisonment.
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