Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on Thursday convicted and sentenced one Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, an actress, to six months imprisonment for spraying and stepping on the new naira notes at a social event in Lagos.
The actress, also known as Simi Gold, was first arraigned on February 13, 2023 by the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on two-count charges to which she pleaded not guilty.
She was subsequently granted bail on February 15, 2023.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, on the 28th day of January 2023, at Monarch Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst dancing during a social occasion, tampered with the sum of N100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying same in the said occasion, and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.”
At the resumed hearing on Thursday, Omoseyin, however, changed her “not guilty” plea to “guilty”, in view of the overwhelming evidence against her.
Following her “guilty” plea, the prosecution counsel, Z.B. Atiku, called Abubakar Mohammed Marafa, an operative of the EFCC, to review the facts of the matter.
Marafa recalled that “the defendant was arrested by officers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, on February 1, 2023 and handed over to the Commission the following day for further investigation.”
According to him, the defendant’s statement was taken under caution, where she stated that she attended a friend’s wedding on January 28, 2023 and sprayed N200 and N100 notes on the occasion.
“The defendant was processed and the videos of where she sprayed the money was found on her phone.
“Also, further investigations were carried out and the management of the event centre was invited. They also brought in the video footage of the said event.”
The prosecution counsel further applied to tender, in evidence, the letter from the ICPC and other accompanying documents, including the extra-judicial statement of the defendant, forensic report of her phone, a CD of videos showing her spraying the naira notes, a flash drive from the event centre together with the statement of the representative of the centre.
Justice Aneke admitted them as exhibits and convicted the defendant, as charged.
The defence counsel, Afuye Adegbola, pleaded for leniency, saying: “She’s a first-time offender. She is a mother of one. She is remorseful and pleads for mercy.”
He further pleaded for a non-custodial sentence on behalf of the convict.
Delivering judgment, Justice Aneke sentenced the defendant to six months imprisonment, effective from Thursday, with an option of N300,000.00 (three hundred thousand naira only) fine to be paid into the consolidated revenue account of the federation.
Omoseyin bagged her imprisonment after she was arrested by operatives of the ICPC along Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, following the video of her spraying naira notes and stepping on the newly redesigned notes at a party.
In the viral video, she was also seen flaunting wads of new naira notes.
In her statement to the Commission, she claimed that she received the new naira notes from her fans at the party and that she did not know the persons who gave her the money.
The items recovered from her at the point of arrest included a Range Rover SUV.
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