Olu Onagoruwa V. The State (1993)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

NIKI TOBI, J.C.A. 

The appellant is a Legal Practitioner. He has his practice at No. 96, Lagos Street, Ebute Metta, Lagos. P.W.8 is the complainant. She is Alhaja Taibat Adeniji. She lives at No. 50 Community Road, Akoka, Lagos. She is a business woman having a number of companies. Losada Nigeria Ltd. is one. The charge wrongly referred to her as Alhaji Taibat Adeniji. I would like to think that there is a difference between the two, and it is a ‘gender’ difference. While Alhaja refers to a female Muslim, Alhaji refers to a male muslim. The two cannot be used indiscriminately or interchangeably. P.W.8, being a woman is an Alhaja, not an Alhaji. It is unfortunate that the prosecution was that careless, in a serious matter such as this. They amended the charge once but they did not see the mistake. And so it went through their entire case.
Although the mistake is of no significance in this appeal as it is not raised by the appellant, it clearly underscores the point that counsel should not take lightly the preparation of Court processes and Court documents. Some are. Like the one in this case. They have a duty to ensure the accuracy of all Court processes, a’fortiori, a charge, which the law expects to be very exact and precise to the minutest detail. Somebody was careless somewhere. That is not good and that is the point I am making. Having made the point let the slip stay where it is.

The appellant and P.W.8 are cousins. As a matter of fact they are first cousins. They both say so. Apart from being blood relations, they had some cordial professional relationship. That relationship has broken down. In its place is this criminal matter now in between them. P.W.8 was a client to the appellant. The exact date of their professional relationship is not in evidence. That is not important. What is important is that the professional relationship between the two resulted in some misunderstanding, a misunderstanding in which P. W.8 invited the police to investigate.

Following police investigation, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Lagos State, preferred a charge against the appellant. It was a charge of stealing the sum of N720,000.00. Let me state the charge for ease of reference:
“STATEMENT OF OFFENCE
Stealing, contrary to Section

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390(a) of the Criminal Law. Cap. 31, Laws of Lagos State.
PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE
Dr. Olu Onagoruwa (m) between the years of 1982 and 1987 at No. 24/26 Lagos Street, Ebute Metta, in the Lagos Judicial Division stole the sum of Seven Hundred and Twenty Thousand Naira (N720,000.00) property of Alhaji (sic) Taibat Adeniji, being the proceeds of the disposition of her landed property situate at Gbagada in Lagos State and which disposition you undertook on her behalf.”

The appellant was arraigned before Silva, J. on 30th January. 1989. He pleaded not guilty. The prosecution called eight witnesses, including the complainant. The case of the prosecution can be summarized as follows: P.W.8 is the ‘Chairman’ of Losada Nigeria Limited. The company needed some money to pay off some retrenched workers and return fares of some expatriate staff. It borrowed N500.000 from Wema Bank (Nigeria) Limited. P.W.8 stood as guarantor for the loan. She pledged her land at Medina Estate to the Bank. P.W.8 entered into a mortgage agreement with the Bank.

Losada Nigeria Limited defaulted. Wema Bank decided to recover the loan by selling the Medina Estate land

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of P.W.8. She pleaded with the General Manager of the Bank to allow her sell the land and repay the loan. This was acceptable to the Bank. The parties agreed to call in their solicitors at that stage to draw up an agreement. Professor M.I.Jegede acted for Wema Bank. while the appellant acted for P.W.8. An agreement was reached along the line proposed by P.W.8.

P.W.8 thereafter instructed the appellant to sell the land and pay the proceeds of the sale into a client’s account at Wema Bank so that the loan “would gradually be repaid”. Appellant sold forty-eight plots. Although the average price per plot was N15.000.00, the appellant sold some for that amount and others for N10.000.00 and N20.000.00.

Following a Daily Times publication that Wema Bank was to sell the land to recover the loan, P.W.8 called the appellant to know how much he had paid into the Bank. He said he had paid in the sum of N40,000.00. P.W.8 expressed some surprise. To her, the amount paid was rather small, particularly in the light of the fact that about twenty persons had purchased land in the estate. Although the appellant took an action against the bank to stop the sale, the

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action failed. P.W.8 pleaded with the bank to give her more time to repay the loan. The Bank agreed and so she did so instalmentally.