Friday, December 7, 2012

Businessman sentenced to eight-hour community service



The Lagos State Special Offences Court, Alausa, Ikeja, on Thursday, sentenced a Dubai, United Arab Emirate-based businessman, Joseph Nwudu, to eiight-hour community service for violation of traffic offence on November 2.
The senior magistrate presiding over the court, Mrs. E.M Johnson, handed down her judgment, after Nwudu, 29, pleaded guilty to the offence of driving against the traffic along Campbell Street, off J.K. Randle Road, Lagos Island.
Johnson also ordered Nwudu to give an undertaking never to violate traffic law again.
Earlier in his allocutus (plea for mercy) on behalf of his client, Mr. Segun Ayodele, had pleaded for leniency, saying Nwudu was a first offender with no record of breach of traffic law of the state.
He said the defendant was residing in Dubai and that he was only in Nigeria to attend to his ailing father who died five minutes before his arrest.
“Your honour, as you can see, he is remorseful having realised what he did is against the traffic laws of the state,” Ayodele said.
Ayodele pleaded with the court to exercise its discretion in consideration of his client’s situation at the time of his arrest, in accordance with section 36(3) of Road Traffic Law 2012.
The businessman, was arrested by the policemen attached to the Lagos State Governor’s House, with his Honda Accord IV-TEC model with registration number XW 646 AGL driving against oncoming traffic at about 1.05 am on the day of the incident.
The Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaye, who prosecuted the case, had urged the court to proceed to apply the Lagos Traffic Law 2012 against the defendant.
Punch

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