Ekiti lady and friend get sentences over fake kidnap

On Monday, an Ekiti State Chief Magistrates’ Court sitting in Ado Ekiti sentenced a 20-year-old lady, Mary Idris, and her collaborator, Victor Olawusi, 18, to two weeks community service for faking a kidnap.

The court also ordered the convicts to undergo two weeks counselling for the offence. Mary, who travelled from Ado Ekiti from Akure, the Ondo State capital, on August 9, 2020, colluded with Victor to send a message to her parents that she had been kidnapped and that her abductors were demanding ransom.

The police prosecutor, Monica Ikebulo, said the convicts “did conduct themselves in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace by concealing their whereabouts and demanding ransom from Mary’s parents on the pretext that she had been kidnapped.”

However, Mary said that she went to her boyfriend at Akure to catch fun and ran out of money to make her way back to Ado Ekiti and this made her to send the alarming message to her parents.

The Chief Magistrate, Adefunke Anoma, said, “This again is sadly a sign of high moral decadence in the fabric our society.”

Anoma frowned on Mary’s action for leaving the comfort of her home only to go and stay at a guesthouse for four days.

“The two (community service and counselling) are to run simultaneously and the convicts are to report back to the court at the expiration of the said two weeks,” the chief magistrate ordered.

According to her, while the Chief Security Officer of the Ekiti State Judiciary will supervise the community service, the Court Registrar will supervise the counselling.