A Lugbe Grade 1 Area Court in Abuja has sentenced a 20-year-old site labourer, Shamsudeen Salisu, to six months imprisonment for stealing cell phones.
Salisu, of no fixed address, had pleaded guilty to a two-count charge of theft and escape from lawful custody.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the convict also begged the court for leniency.
The judge, Mr. Aliyu Kagarko, however, gave the convict the option of a N20,000 fine and warned him to be a good citizen and of good behavior and to desist from committing crime after serving his jail term.
He said that the punishment would have been stiffer if the convict had not saved the court from the rigours of protracted prosecution.
Earlier, the prosecutor, Mr. Anayo Nnamani, told the court that the complainant, Lawrence David, of Masaka, Nassarawa State, reported the matter at the Asokoro police station on March 21.
Nnamani said that on March 20, the convict went to NAF Valley’ Estate, Asokoro, Abuja, where the complainant was working at a construction site and dishonestly and smartly made away with his Techno Pomo3 phone, valued at N32,000.
He told the court that the convict stole the complainant’s cell phones along with his Access Bank ATM card, which he kept at the back of the phone’s pouch.
He said that the convict dishonestly used the complainant’s sim card to purchase airtime worth N55,700 and sold the phone for N2,000.
Nnamani told the court that the convict snicked out of police custody and escaped through the fence but was chased and re-arrested.
The prosecutor said that during police investigation, the convict made a confessional statement while the cell phones were recovered but that he could not give a satisfactory account of the N55,700 airtime
He said that the offences contravened Sections 287 and 173 of the Penal Code. (NAN)
