A Daura Chief Magistrates’ Court in Kaduna on Wednesday, sentenced a 40-year-old football agent. Olumide Otule, to one-year imprisonment for absconding with a player’s N900,000.
Magistrate Zainab Mohammed in her ruling gave the convict an option to pay N50,000 fine.
Mohammed also ordered Otule pay back N900,000, being the amount owed the complainant.
Otule, a resident of No 7 Kofar Gamji Complex in Kaduna, was first arraigned on May 1, 2016 on a two-count charge of criminal breach of trust and cheating.
The Prosecutor, Sunday Baba, told the court that Adebayo Owolabi of No DD5 Kabba Road in Kaduna wrote a letter of complaint to the Commissioner of Police in Kaduna State on April 18, 2016.
According to Baba, sometime in 2015, the accused approached the complainant on the pretext of securing a football club for him in the Republic of Philippines as a player.
The prosecutor said the accused deceitfully collected the sum of N900,000 from the complainant and told him to travel to the Philippines where another agent will pick him up at the airport.
“On reaching the Philippines airport, the complainant was left stranded without anybody to pick him at the airport neither was any club arranged for him,” the prosecutor said.
He said that the offences contravened Sections 312 and 322 of the Penal Code.
The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges.
