An actress, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, has been sentenced to six months in jail by Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos for stepping on and spraying the new Naira notes at a social gathering in Lagos.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which reported her conviction in a statement on its X page on Thursday, however did not state the date of the conviction and sentencing.
The anti-graft agency said: “She was first arraigned on February 13, 2023, by the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on two-count charges, to which she pleaded “not guilty.”
She was subsequently granted bail on February 15, 2023.
The statement reads partly: “That you, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, on the 28th day of January 2023, at Monarch Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst dancing during a social occasion tampered with the sum of N100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying same in the said occasion and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.”
At the resumed hearing on Thursday, Omoseyin changed her “not guilty” plea to “guilty” because of the overwhelming evidence against her.
Following her “guilty plea”, the prosecution counsel, Z.B. Atiku called Abubakar Mohammed Marafa, an operative of the EFCC to review the facts of the matter.
Marafa recalled that “the defendant was arrested by officers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on February 1, 2023, and was handed over to the Commission on February 2, 2023, for further investigation.“
“The defendant was processed and the videos of where she sprayed the money was found on her phone. Also, further investigations were carried out and the management of the event centre was invited. They also brought in the video footage of the said event.”
Judge Aneke delivered the verdict, sentencing the defendant to six months in jail, starting on Thursday, with the option to pay a fine of N300,000.00 into the Federation’s Consolidated revenue account.
Omoseyin bagged her imprisonment when she was arrested by operatives of the ICPC along Awolowo Road , Ikoyi, Lagos, after the video of her spraying and stepping on the newly redesigned Naira notes at a party surfaced online. In the viral video, she was also seen flaunting wads of the new Naira notes.
In her statement to the Commission, she claimed that she received the new Naira notes from her fans at the party and that she did not know the persons who gave her the money.
Items recovered from her at the point of arrest include a Range Rover.