The Special Offences Court sitting in the Ikeja area of Lagos State has sentenced the duo of Ugwu Pascal Chijioke and Ibrahim Sadiq Adekunle to 46 years imprisonment for impersonating operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) while executing a fake court order.

The convicts were re-arraigned by the Lagos Zonal Command of the EFCC on an amended five-count charge bordering on impersonation, attempt to obtain property, possession of documents containing false pretence and unlawfully wearing the uniform of the anti-graft agency.

One of the counts read: “That you, Ugwu Pascal Chijioke and Ibrahim Sadiq Adekunle, on or about the 12th day of May, 2021 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, by false pretence and with intent to defraud, attempted to obtain property from one Oriyomi Johnson under the pretext that the ‘Chief Magistrate Court, Lagos State Judiciary, Mushin, Lagos’ issued an Order to the effect that the property located at New Horizon Estate, Lekki- Ikate, Lagos be seized and the said apartment sealed pending the arrival of the said Oriyomi Johnson, which representation you knew to be false and committed an offence of attempt to obtain property by false pretense contrary to Sections 8(b) of the Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section11(3) of the same Act.”

The two fake EFCC operatives pleaded guilty to the charges when they were read to them.

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Following their guilty pleas, the prosecution counsel, Abdulhamid Lamido Tukur, gave a review of the facts of the case to prove the guilt of the defendants.

Tukur, thereafter, urged the court to convict the defendants as charged and sentenced them accordingly.

According to a statement issued by EFCC spokesman Dele Oyewale on Saturday, June 15, 2024, presiding judge Justice O.O.Abike-Fadipe found Chijioke and Adekunle guilty as charged on counts one, two, three, four, and five.

Delivering judgement, Justice Abike-Fadipe sentenced the defendants each to seven years on counts one to three each, one year on count four, and eight months on count five.

The sentences are to run concurrently, the judge said.

The EFCC further disclosed that the convicts were arrested sometime in May 2021, following credible intelligence received by the commission, while they were in the middle of an illegal operation at the New Horizon Estate in the Lekki area of Lagos.

Items recovered from them included fake EFCC identity cards, jackets, and a court order purported to have emanated from Mushin Magistrate Court.

The Star