Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of the Lagos State High Court on Thursday sentenced a banker, Olawale Garuba, to 39 years imprisonment for stealing from the dead.
The convict was arraigned alongside six others in July 2015 for conspiring among themselves to steal over N30, 000,000 from the bank account a deceased customer of a bank where the convict works.
Others arraigned with Garuba are Festus Onile, Abiodun Afainiya, Jayeola Afolabi David, Yewande Adeyemi and Adetoun Kammal.
The fraud was uncovered by the bank when it discovered that some staff, including the convict, had connived with proxies to steal from a dormant account of one of the bank’s customers.
Upon the discovery of the fraud, the bank apprehended the staff and handed them over to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for investigation and prosecution.
Upon their arraignment, they pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of fraud.
Justice Ipaye refused their bail application and remanded them in prison custody.
On June 2, 2016, the convicted banker changed his plea from “not guilty” to “guilty”.
He was immediately convicted by Justice Ipaye, who adjourned the case to Thursday.
Counsel representing the banker, O. Ajanaku, pleaded with the court to tamper justice with mercy in sentencing his client.
He told the court that his client was a remorseful first time offender with a young wife and two little children.
Prosecution counsel, Abba Mohammed, urged the court to consider the three way traffic while tampering justice with mercy. That is the interest of the court, the victim and the convict.
After listening to the prayers of counsel, Justice Ipaye said despite the remorse of the convict, she had no sympathy for him as he compromised his position as a banker to steal from a deceased customer whose money would have been used by the family she left behind.
She added that the convict allowed his greed to overcome him and risk losing the job that thousands of job seekers are craving to get.
The judge found the banker guilty on 13 of the eighteen counts, and sentenced him to three years imprisonment on each count. The sentences are to run concurrently from the date of his first detention, which is July 24, 2015.
