Ketu Oluyomi/Onigbongbo land tussle: Court jails four for contempt

A High Court of Ogun state sitting in Abeokuta has sentenced four men for contempt of court for forging the name and signature of a lawyer on a writ of execution of a judgment.

Justice A.A. Akinyemi convicted the men after one of them, Kolawole Babatunde of Baala Banjoko Family of Onigbongbo Village, Ketu, confessed to the court that he forged the name and signature of the lawyer to the benefit of other convicts.

Babatunde however begged for leniency as he claimed that he did not know that what he did was unlawful and that he only did it because they owed their lawyer.

Justice Akinyemi in his ruling noted that the convicts – Kolawole Babatunde, Waheed Salami, Olusegun Babatunde and Sheriff Ogungbayi – who were judgment creditors in a land matter lied and misled the court in a writ of execution.

The court observed that the action of the convicts was not just contemptuous but a ridicule of the legal profession, mockery of the court scandalizing and defrauding the court.

Consequently, Justice Akinyemi sentenced Kolawole Babatunde to three months in prison while the other three, Waheed Salami, Olusegun Babatunde and Sheriff Ogungbayi were sentenced to 30 days in prison.

The judge said what they forged a name and signature on could have been done by anyone of them and not just a lawyer and that there was no need for the forgery

However, the court held that since the crime had been completed, ignorance of the law could no longer avail the person.