A lawyer named Taiwo Segun (37), along with three other people, will remain incarcerated at the Agodi Correctional Centre in Ibadan till October 25 after reportedly staging a kidnapping and demanding N9.3 million in cash.
The decision was made on Wednesday by the M.O. Mudashiru-led Iyaganku Chief Magistrates’ Court in Ibadan.
In accordance with his directive, Segun and his three companions—Olorunfemi Olakunle (38), Adams Danjuma (36) and Azubuike Agu (35)—were to be detained until the Oyo State Directorate of Public Prosecutions provided guidance.
The accused was charged by the police with conspiracy, extortion, obtaining, providing false information to the police, and fraud on eight counts.
The court was previously informed by the prosecution’s attorney, Mr. M. O. Ojeih, that the accused allegedly helped and abetted one another in a self-kidnapped scheme.
The goal of the kidnapping, according to Olorunfemi Olakunle, was to extort N7 million from Babatunde Adebayo, Stephen Haastrup, and Adejoke Adeleke, Ojeih told the court.
In a plea they sent to the police commissioner of Oyo State on May 24, the accused allegedly provided fake information to the police, he said.
He asserted that the petition’s allegations made by the accused—that Olorunfemi was abducted and that the kidnappers took N9.3 million from his bank account—were untrue.
He said that Adams Danjuma, the third defendant, is accused of defrauding Hamzat Ibrahim of N700,000 over the same matter.
Danjuma, he said, claimed to be a Chief Superintendent of Police and the Personal Assistant to a former Inspector-General of Police when he approached his victim.
According to Ojeih, the acts violated both the Oyo State Criminal Code Laws of Oyo State (2000) and the Oyo State Kidnapping (Prohibition) Law (2016).
Before ordering the accused to be detained at the jail, Chief Magistrate Mudashiru did not hear the accused enter a plea.