Man bags 42-year jail for robbery

A Lagos State High Court sitting at Igbosere yester­day sentenced a 28-year-old man, Victor Effiong, to 42 years in prison for conspiring with others at large to rob one John Ukadike in 2009.

The convict was arraigned on a two-count charge of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery on May 9, 2011. Effiong and other members of his gang robbed their victim of N150,000, two mobile phone handsets and other valuables on Sheraton Link Road, Ikeja.

During the trial, the pros­ecution led by Mrs. M. B. Olaniyi, Director, Admin­istrator-General and Public Trustee in the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, called Corporal Gowon Melinga, who said he and his anti-rob­bery team arrested the con­vict while he and his gang were robbing their victim.

The witness tendered a confessional statement made by the convict. The convict admitted in the confessional statement that he and his gang operating on a mo­torcycle robbed Ukadike at gunpoint on December 31, 2009 in order to get money for New Year’s celebration.

In his defence, Effiong, however, denied making any confessional statement to the police.

At the close of trial, coun­sel for the defendant, Ka­zeem Lukman, urged the court to discharge and acquit Effiong, arguing that the prosecution failed to prove the offences of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery beyond rea­sonable doubt.

But Mrs. Olaniyi urged the court to hold that the prosecution had proved the offences against the convict and that the retraction of the confessional statement was an afterthought.

Delivering judgement, Justice Olabisi Akinlade, held that the prosecution had a burden to prove the offenc­es of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery beyond reasonable doubt.

From the evidence ad­duced at the trial, the judge said, the prosecution was un­able to prove the offences of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery against the convict.

The prosecution, she held, only tendered a pair of pliers. She added that the instru­ment tendered by the prose­cution could not be regarded as a dangerous weapon re­quired to prove armed rob­bery, which attracts a man­datory death sentence.

Justice Akinlade, how­ever, said from the evidence before the court, the prosecu­tion succeeded in establish­ing the offences of conspir­acy to commit robbery and robbery against the convict.

She dismissed Effiong’s retraction of his confessional statement, saying the evi­dence corroborated the pros­ecution witness’ testimony that he and his gang appre­hended the convict at the scene of crime when the lat­ter gave up on his attempt to jump into the canal for fear of death and begged police­men to rescue him from the point he was hanging.

Called by the court to make his allocutus (plea to court to temper justice with mercy), counsel for the de­fence urged Justice Akinlade to consider the fact that the convict was a young Nige­rian who could change if given the opportunity to do so.

The judge, however, held that the court must balance the plea against the interest of society to punish crime.

She subsequently sen­tenced the convict, who was 23 years old at the time of committiing the crime, to 21 years in jail for each of the offences of conspiracy to commit robbery and rob­bery. She, however, ordered that the sentences should run concurrently.