A Federal High Court in Lagos has convicted and sentenced two businessmen, Emmanuel Chukwuemeka and Kingsley Amanambu, to 14 years imprisonment for unlawful importation of 8, 200 kilograms of cough syrup containing codeine.
Justice Akintayo Aluko who sentenced them on Tuesday also ordered that they should forfeit a White Toyota Tacoma V6 with registration number, EKY 883 GK, used in transporting the prohibited drug, to the Federal Government of Nigeria, for being a proceed of crime.
The convicts were sentenced after they pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy, unlawful importation and dealings with the banned drug, preferred against them by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
The NDLEA prosecution counsel, Juliana Negedu, told the court that the convicts were arrested with the banned cough syrup, on June 10, 2024, at the Comfort Oboh Estate, Kirikiri, Apapa, Lagos.
Negedu also told the court that the convicts conspired with some others, who are now at large, to commit the illicit act.
According to her, the offences committed contravened Sections 14(b), 11(a) and 11(c), 20(2) and (b) of the NDLEA’s Act Cap N 30, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
However, the convicts pleaded guilty to the charges when they weree read to them.
Following their guilty plea, the prosecutor called a witness, N. Benjamin, an exhibit keeper with the NDLEA, who tendered the bulk of the seized drug and other exhibits in the charge, which was admitted by the court.
Upon admitting the exhibits, the prosecutor urged the court to convict and sentence the two businessmen as charged.
But counsel for the convicts, Rita Nyiew, in her allucutos, pleaded with the court to be lenient with her clients in sentencing them.
She urged the court to give her clients a non-custodian sentence and in the alternative, a fine option in lieu of the jail term.
Nyiew pleaded with the court to grant her requests, saying that the convicts were first time offenders.
After listening to the counsel’s submissions and confirmed from the prosecutor that the convicts had no record of any previous conviction, the judge sentenced them to five years in count one, six years in count two and three years in count three.
The convicts were ordered to pay the sum of N1m, on each of the counts, as the option of a fine in lieu of the jail term.
The judge, however, ordered that both the jail term and fine options shall run concurrently.
Following the conviction of the two businessmen, the prosecutor moved the ex parte motion for the forfeiture of the vehicle used in the illicit act.
The prosecutor told the court that the motion was pursuant to Sections 3(c), 31(a), 32(c), 33(1)(a), 34, 36,44 (2)(k),7, 8, 9, 19(1-3), 21(1) and 22(1) of the Proceeds Of Crime Recovery and Management Acts 2022 of the NDLEA.
She told the court that the orders sought in the motion are: “an order forfeiting to the Federal Government of Nigeria and custody in the applicant of a White Toyota Tacoma V6 with Registration Number EKY 883 GK, being an instrumentality in committing the Crime and a Proceed of Crime and for such further or other orders as this Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the Circumstances.”
The prosecutor told the court that the ex parte motion for a final forfeiture order was supported by an 18-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Kayode Abu Ojo, a litigation officer attached to the Lagos State Command of the NDLEA.
Justice Aluko after listening to the prosecutor’s submission and read through the provisions of laws cited, ordered that the vehicle, a White Toyota Tacoma V6 with Registration Number EKY 883 GK, be finally forfeited to the Federal Government.
