On Thursday, February 1, 2024, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, an actress, was found guilty and given a six-month prison sentence by Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court located in Ikoyi, Lagos, for stepping on and spray-painting the new Naira notes during a social gathering in Lagos.
On February 13, 2023, she was first charged with two counts by the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). She entered a plea of “not guilty” to both counts.
That you, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, on the 28th day of January 2023 at Monarch Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos, while dancing during a social occasion tampered with the sum of N100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigerian.
Omoseyin, however, altered her plea from “not guilty” to “guilty” at the reopened court on Thursday due to the overwhelming body of evidence against her.
After she entered her “guilty plea,” Z.B. Atiku, the prosecution’s attorney, invited EFCC agent Abubakar Mohammed Marafa to go over the case’s details.
According to Marafa, the defendant was taken into custody on February 1, 2023, by officers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC), and on February 2, 2023, the defendant was turned over to the Commission for additional investigation.
The defendant claimed that she sprayed N200 and N100 Naira notes on January 28, 2023, during a friend’s wedding. He claimed that the defendant’s statement was cautiously collected.
The prosecution’s attorney then requested to present in evidence the ICPC letter as well as other supporting materials, such as the defendant’s extrajudicial statement, the forensic report of her phone, a CD containing videos of her spraying the naira note, a flash drive from the event center, and the statement of the center’s representative.
Judge Aneke found the defendant guilty of the charges against him after admitting them as exhibits. Afuye Adegbola, the defense attorney, begged for mercy, stating that the client was a first-time offender, a mother of one, and that she was sorry.
Judge Aneke delivered the verdict, sentencing the offender to six months in prison starting on Thursday and offering the alternative of paying a fine of N300,000.00 (three hundred thousand naira only).
Omoseyin received her jail sentence when she was apprehended by ICPC agents on Awolowo Road in Ikoyi, Lagos, following the internet release of a video showing her stepping on and spray-painting the freshly redesigned Naira notes at a party. She was also seen flashing wads of the new Naira notes in the viral video. She stated in her testimony before the Commission that she did not know the people who gave her the money and that she was given the new Naira notes by her partygoers.