Osun State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Wale Afolabi, has justified the 10-year imprisonment of an accused, Kelvin Ighodalo, who stole the phone of Governor Rauf Aregbesola on November 27, 2010.
Afolabi, in a statement made available to our correspondent on Wednesday, accused the media of sensationalising the verdict of an Osogbo High Court on the phone theft.
Justice Oyejide Falola had on Monday found Ighodalo guilty of a six-count charge and sentenced him to a total of 45 years jail term.
The concurrency of the sentencing implies that Ighodalo would serve only 10 years in prison.
Afolabi said many newspapers had reported that the court sentenced Ighodalo to 45 years imprisonment even as the concurrency of the term was not reflected in some of the stories.
He insisted that the stories should reflect the 10-year jail term pronounced by the judge.
Afolabi said, “To say that Ighodalo was sentenced to 45 years prison term for stealing Aregbesola’s phone is not only misleading but unduly sensationalising, unfair to the court and the criminal justice system.
“The learned judge while sentencing Ighodalo exercised his discretion within the limited space allowed by law to sentence him to 10 years term on each of the first three counts instead of 20 years and five years each on the last three counts instead of seven or 14 years.
“This, the court must do with the accused having pleaded guilty and having accepted the facts presented by the prosecution. He is, however, to spend 10 years as the court has pronounced that the prison terms are to run concurrently.”
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wao,good but what about the people who stole and fraud our good country over billion naira and dollas. pay some certain amount & go or spend just one or two years in prinson. kai-judiciary.
ReplyDeletehv u eva heard dat, a man stole a goat & he was sentence to 5 yrs imprisonment?
ReplyDeleteHmmmm, Nigeria laws are meant for the poor masses, our judiciary system should be really ashamed of themselves as adjudicators of a justice system that convicts citizens of small crimes while those who perpetuate big crimes like embezzling govt funds to the tune of billions are free to roam about on the street.
ReplyDeletecan the so called governor come out in public that he has never embelzed govt funds to date?
shame on our judicairy system.
They need to strive to get this corrected otherwise we will not have any confidence in them,oh there has never being any confidence in the first place.
Why only poor man spend longtime in prison?
ReplyDeleteRubbish! Nonsense!! where Aregbesola got the phone? He should tell Nigerians.
ReplyDeleteWith all the loots made by Bode Judge, Ibori, Udiaga, Bankole,Gbenga Daniel, OBJ, IBB, Abdulsallam to mention few but what happen to them; nothing. So why do you want to crucify a poor man hungry man?
Aregbesola, though justice is said to be the advantage of the stronger as far is Nija is concerned. You are my governor beside, you are a Muslim therefore, with immediate effect you better forgive that innocent hungry man to go and sin no more otherwise!!!!!!! Gongo aso.