Nollywood Actress Sent To Jail For Spraying Naira Notes In Event

Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday has sentenced a Nollywood actress, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, to six months in prison for spraying and stepping on the new naira notes at a social event in Lagos State.

Naija News reports that the actress 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.

One of the charges reads: “That you, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, on January 28 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 (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.”

However, at the resumed hearing on Thursday, Omoseyin changed her “not guilty” plea to “guilty.”

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: “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 defence counsel, Afuye Adegbola, pleaded for leniency, saying, “She’s a first-time offender; she is a mother of one; she is remorseful and pleads for mercy.”

Delivering judgement, Justice Aneke sentenced the defendant to six months imprisonment, effective from Thursday, with an option of a N300,000 (three hundred thousand naira only) fine to be paid into the consolidated revenue account of the federation.