The Standard Organization of Nigeria has arraigned five men before the Federal High Court in Lagos for alleged impersonation and forgery.
The men, who have been identified as Joshua James, Dagunduro Taiwo, Fatade Samuel, Peter Otegbe and Azeez Wasiu, were on Friday arraigned before Justice Abimbola Awogboro, have allegedly been presenting themselves to members of the public as officials of SON.
The leadership reported that, the defendants were also accused of forging SON’s official receipts, SON’s MBAS IDEAL Model 4942D stamp, which they allegedly used in claiming to be officials of the agency.
Alongside the alleged crime of forgery, they were also alleged to have evaded the payment of a service charge of N12,600, to the organization.
The prosecutor, Yusuf Lawal had told the court that the defendants committed the above offences on July 7 and August 25, 2022, at Sifax Ijora, Lagos.
He further informed the court that the offences contravened section 31(1) of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, Act, 2015.
However, all the defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges layer against them.
Based on their pleas, the prosecutor urged the court to fix a trial date and also remand the defendants in the custody of the Nigerian Correctional Services pending the determination of the charge.
But the defence counsel who had filed for the bail of one of the defendants, Fatade Samuel, told the court that same has been served to the prosecutor.
The judge after listening to the lawyers, granted the defendant bail in the sum of N5 million with two sureties in like sum.
The court then ordered that the sureties must present evidence of three years of tax payment and that one of the sureties must be a landed property owner within the court’s jurisdiction.
The judge, while adjourning the matter till December 2 and 5, for trial, ordered that all the other four defendants be remanded in prison.
