The Magistrate, Mrs O. Sule Amzat, who handed down the verdict, said the sentence should serve as a deterrent to others.
Two men — Elijah Ogunyemi and Wasiu Saliu — are to spend the next five years each in jail for robbing a man of his phone valued at N150, 000, an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court, ruled on Wednesday.
The Magistrate, Mrs O. Sule Amzat, who handed down the verdict, said the sentence should serve as a deterrent to others.
Amzat advised Ogunyemi, 22, and Saliu, 20, both residents of Oremeta Street, Ojodu Berger, on the outskirts of Lagos, to desist from committing crime.
The convicts, who were arraigned on a two-count charge of conspiracy and theft, pleaded guilty to the charges.
The convicts asked the court to temper justice with mercy, saying they committed the crime because of lack of job and poverty.
The Prosecutor, Police Insp. Benson Emuerhi, had told the court that the complainant, Benson Eniber, was robbed of his Infinix phone valued at N150,000 on April 11 at Ketu, Lagos.
According to him, the accused are “professional pickpockets”.
“The accused attacked the complainant and robbed him of the phone and as a result, a mob wanted to set them ablaze before the police came and arrested them.
“The men admitted during interrogation that they have been picking pockets of people
for over two years,” he said.
Emuerhi said the phone and a cutlass were recovered from them by the police.
The offences contravened Sections 287 and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
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