Court jails 25-year-old five years for drug peddling

Prosper

A 25-year-old man, Ambrose Atakpagh, was on Thursday sentenced to a jail term of five years for unlawful possession of 800 grammes of canabis sativa.

Atakpagh, who was arraigned before a Federal High Court in Lagos, had on March 12, 2015 pleaded guilty to one count bordering on the offence.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency had in the charge alleged that the convict was caught with the contraband on November 11, 2014 at Iyayi Express in Lagos.

At the resumed trial on Thursday, the NDLEA prosecutor, Mr. Orji Kalu, reviewed the facts of the case and tendered various exhibits to substantiate the agency’s claims against Atakpagh.

Kalu urged the court to pronounce Atakpagh guilty and sentence him in accordance with the law.

“My Lord, in view of the guilty plea of the accused and all the exhibits tendered by the prosecution in this matter, we pray the court to convict the accused as charged having regards to section 218 and 285 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Act.

“Again, the confessional statement of the accused is positive, direct and unequivocal in admitting the offence,” Kalu said.

The trial judge, Justice C.J. Aneke, after hearing Kalu out, accordingly convicted Atakpagh.

While delivering the judgment, the judge expressed surprise that the lawyer for the accused refused to make any allocutus on his behalf.

Aneke, however, said he was inclined to temper judgment with mercy because the convict had promptly owned up to the crime and did not waste the judicial time of the court and tax payers’ money.

“I am surprised that in spite of the fact that the accused person is represented by a counsel, his counsel cannot even make an allocutus for him and this is a strange practice for me,” the judge said.

He sentenced Atakpagh to five years in prison for contravening Section 11(c) of the NDLEA Act, Cap N30 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.