Welder bags two-month imprisonment for paying customer’s N430,000 into MMM

Automobile parts dealer bags 10 years sentence over heroine smuggling
A Karmo Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, yesterday sentenced one Hassan Joshua, 38, to two months imprisonment for criminal breach of trust and cheating, bordering on failure to pay back a customer’s N430, 000, according to New Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The judge, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, however, gave him N10,000 option of fine and warned him to desist from committing crime. The judge also ordered the convict to pay N430,000 to the complainant.

Joshua, a welder, who resides at NIMASA Estate, Gwarimpa, Abuja, said he paid the money into the Movrodi Mondial Movement (MMM) scheme. MMM is a social financial network, a mutual aid-funding network of ordinary people helping each other.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Zannah Dalhatu, told the court that one Mr. Fagbo Tubosun of Gwarimpa Estate reported the matter at Gwarimpa Police Station on February 7. Dalhatu said that in October 2016, the convict was given the money to construct water tank and doors.

“After collecting the money, he refused to do the work and he absconded to an unknown destination,’’ he said.

The prosecutor said that during police investigation, Joshua confessed to the crime.

The offence is punishable under Sections 312 and 322 of the Penal Code.

Meanwhile, Justice Sale Kogo Idrissa of the Federal High Court sitting in Kano State has sentenced an automobile parts dealer, Okeke Chika Victor, to 10 years imprisonment for heroin smuggling.

The suspect, who hails from Anambra State, pleaded not guilty to a one-count charge of unlawful importation of heroin filed against him by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). After five months of intense trial, Justice Sale found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.

The heroin, weighing 10.6kg and concealed inside new submersible water pumping machines, were illegally imported from Maputo in Mozambique in April 2016.

NDLEA officers at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) made the discovery during an inward screening of an Ethiopian Airline flight. After an intense follow-up operation, the convict, Okeke Chika Victor, was arrested on September 3, 2016 and charged to court.

According to the NDLEA Kano airport commander, Ambrose Umaru, the arrest of the convict was made possible by the tenacity of officers who successfully monitored the convict.

“After the heroin seizure was made in April 2016, we organized a man hunt that eventually led to the arrest of Victor in September 2016. Although he pleaded not guilty but he was unable to prove his case before the court.”

Meanwhile, the convict in his statement said he was promised the sum of $5,000. “I was asked to bring the heroin to Nigeria for a fee of $5,000, but my arrest has turned the table against me. I had wanted to invest the money in automobile parts business,” he stated.

Chairman of the NDLEA, Mr. Muhammad Mustapha Abdallah, expressed satisfaction with the sentence describing it as laudable.

“The timely dispensation of justice and 10 years sentence passed on the convict is laudable. Let me assure you that the Agency will continue to push for stiffer punishment for drug trafficking, thereby making the criminal trade unattractive,” the chairman stated.

Abdallah commended the agency’s growing capacity to detect concealed drugs adding that notwithstanding the clever manner the heroin was concealed inside submersible water pumping machines, the drug was detected with ease.