The police on Thursday docked a 50-year-old cleaner, Ayuba Apagu, at an Ikeja Chief Magistrates’ Court over an alleged theft of his employer’s generator wire valued N25,000.
The defendant, who resides at No. 4 Yaya Hassan Adeshina St., Idimu, Lagos, is facing two counts of willful damage and stealing.
The prosecutor, Insp Matthew Akhaluode, told the court that Apagu damaged a Mikano Generator valued at N2.5 million, belonging to his employer, a first generation bank located in Lagos.
He said that the defendant thereafter stole the generator terminal cable worth N25,000, a property of the bank.
Akhaluode added that the offences were committed on January 14 at the bank’s Oba-Akran Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos branch.
He explained that “the security guard of the bank caught the defendant when he was about to step out of the bank gate
with generator copper wire tied under his clothes.”
He said that the offences contravened sections 287 and 350 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015, (Revised) which
stipulate a seven-year jail term and two-year imprisonment if convicted.
However, the defendant pleaded not guilty and the Chief Magistrate, Mrs A.A. Adetunji, granted him bail in the sum of N50,000 with two sureties in like sum.
Adetunji also ordered the defendant to produce two sureties who must be gainfully employed and who should show evidence of two years’ tax payment to the Lagos State Government as part of the bail conditions.
The Magistrate adjourned the case until February 20 for hearing.