A/Court upturns businessman’s 1-year jail sentence

The Court of Appeal in Ado-Ekiti yesterday upturned a one-year imprisonment sentence a magistrate’s court in Ado-Ekiti and the High Court in Ekiti State passed on a prominent businessman in Ado-Ekiti, Alhaji Azeez Apempe, for allegedly giving false information to the police. The two courts had convicted Apempe of the charge preferred against him by […]

The Court of Appeal in Ado-Ekiti yesterday upturned a one-year imprisonment sentence a magistrate’s court in Ado-Ekiti and the High Court in Ekiti State passed on a prominent businessman in Ado-Ekiti, Alhaji Azeez Apempe, for allegedly giving false information to the police.

The two courts had convicted Apempe of the charge preferred against him by the police after he had reported a case of theft on his farm.

  The businessman had reported one Sunday Akoe and his family members to the police for allegedly stealing yams on his farm and destroying the farm in the process.

  He had, in his statement of claim, averred that the police turned him (the complainant) to an accused person and charged him to a magistrate’s court over giving false information.

In sentencing him, the magistrate’s court held that the appellant’s statement written at the police station could not be found.

He was subsequently sentenced to a year imprisonment, with an option of N5,000 fine, which he paid.

Apempe took the case to the High Court, which affirmed the lower court’s sentence. 

  The three-member Appeal Court panel, in a judgment delivered yesterday by Justice Ahmad Belgore, set aside the verdicts of the two lower courts and resolved all issues in favour of the appellant (Apempe).

Describing the trial and conviction of the appellant by the lower courts as a nullity, the Appeal Court subsequently discharged and acquitted him.

The 75-year-old Apenpe is a popular printer and politician.

His counsel, Mr Magnus Ejelonu, said, “His statement at the police station that was missing should be resolved in his favour, just as the two lower courts refusing to take his plea should also be resolved in his favour.”