Man, 44, bags 19-year-jail term for drug trafficking

Lukman Olabiyi

Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo of the  Federal High Court, Lagos has convicted and sentenced a  44-year-old man, Onyeuka Chirotam Slyvanus, to 19 years imprisonment for unlawful importation of hard drugs. 

The judge passed the jail term on the convict after he pleaded guilty to three-count charge of conspiracy and unlawful importation of the said banned drugs from Kenya.

The convict, according to the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), was arrested on May 18, 2018, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, during the inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airline from Kenya, through Addis-Ababa to Lagos.

The anti-drugs agency in the charge pressed against the convict, stated that  Slyvanus was found in possession of the said drugs which he hid in five lady’s handbags.

The convict was said to have conspired with one Chidi, who resides in Tanzania and one Emma living in Nigeria but now at large, to commit the crime.

The offences according to the prosecutor, Juliana Imaobong Iroabuchi, are contrary to sections 11(d), 11(a) and 14(b) of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency Act CapN30, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

The convict had pleaded not guilty to the charge when he was first arraigned before the court sometime in July 2018, and admitted to bail in various terms but unable to meet the bail terms.

However, at the resumed trial of the convict on Wednesday, he decided to change his plea.

Following his change of plea, the presiding judge ordered the prosecutor to review the fact of the crime.

In reviewing the facts of the crime, the prosecutor also tendered some exhibits which included the convict’s three confessional statements, a package of the substance, duplicate of test analysis, drug analysis report, the seized drugs containing heroine and cocaine weighing 6.626 kilograms, ECOWAS international passport, Ethiopian E-ticket, and boarding pass.

Upon reviewing the facts of the crimes and tendering of exhibits, the prosecutor, Mrs. Iroabuchi, urged the court to convict and sentence the defendant as charged.

Consequently, Justice Oguntoyinbo, while admitting all the exhibits tendered by the prosecution also pronounced the defendant guilty as charged.

Following the judge’s pronouncement, lawyer to the convict, Mrs. U. A. Ekwegh, pleaded with the court to tamper justice with mercy in sentencing her client.

Ekwegh told the court that her client was a first-time offender and that he had been remorseful of his act and promised not to engage in crime.

Sentencing the convict, Justice Oguntoyinbo held that “I have heard the convict’s counsel’s plea for leniency. I have heard the counsel saying the convict is a first-time offender.”

However, the judge said the law must take its course; she therefore sentenced the  convict to seven years on count one and six years on both counts two and three.

The judge, however, held that the jail terms should run concurrently and from the first date, he was arrested.

The judge also ordered that the convict’s ECOWAS international passport be forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria and that the seized drugs be destroyed if there was no appeal against the conviction after 90 days.