Driver charged to court for using employer’s money to play bet

A company apprehended and dragged an employee to a Yaba Magistrate’s Court in Lagos for allegedly using company funds to gamble on sports.

On Thursday, Lagos State Police charged a 26-year-old driver, Samuel Meyiwa, with stealing before Magistrate A.O Salawu.

The prosecutor told the court that Meyiwa was hired in March as a driver for a company in Bariga who sells sachet water with a truck, but he has been gambling with part of the money from his daily sales without his employer’s knowledge.

According to the complainant, he went to sell sachet water worth N88,000 in October and did not return the money, but instead returned days later to tell his boss that customers owed him, an act that gradually became a habit.

However, in November, Meyiwa, as usual, drove away with bags of sachet water worth N300,000, supplied all the goods, but then went to bet with the money and then fled.

All attempts to contact him were futile until he was spotted in another company where he had begun working and arrested by the police.

Oriabure told the court that Meyiwa committed the offence between March and November 2023 at Okusanya Street, off Adebayo Road, Bariga, adding that the offence contravened Section 287 (7) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2015.

The charge read, “That you Samuel Meyiwa, sometime March to November 2023 at Bariga in the Yaba Magisterial District did steal the sum of three hundred thousand naira cash from Freedom Pure Water Company situated at No 10 NG Okusanya street off Adebayo Road, Bariga, where you were employed as a driver and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 287 (7) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2015.”

The defendant pleaded not guilty to the one-count charge preferred against him.

Following his plea, the magistrate granted him bail in the sum of N100,000 with two responsible sureties in like sum and then adjourned the case till January 25, 2024, for trial.