A young man, Abdulgafar Ayanrinde, who claimed to have dropped out of the University of Ibadan where he studied Law, has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for impersonating a legal practitioner and committing fraud.
The 25-year-old Ayanrinde was arraigned at a Magistrate’s Court sitting in Osogbo, Osun State, by the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSDC) and slammed with a two-count charge bordering on impersonation and fraud.
He reportedly impersonated a legal practitioner and duped a Point of Sales operator.
When Ayanrinde was arrested and paraded by the corps in Osogbo recently, he said he went into crime to spite his father who he claimed to be a prominent Senior Advocate of Nigeria in Ibadan, Oyo State.
He had disclosed that he dropped out of the university at 200 level (Faculty of Law), owing to lack of money.
He confessed to have paraded himself as an SAN and deceived unsuspecting litigants into hiring him.
The NSCDC prosecuting counsel, T. J. Ayayi, had informed the court, upon arraignment, that Ayarinde paraded himself as a lawyer at the premises of the Osun State High Court on May 22, 2023 and also defrauded a female PoS agent of the sum of N150,000 at INEC Area, Osogbo on May 18, this year.
Ayanrinde had also admitted to having presented himself as an SAN to dupe five unsuspecting members of the public of their hard earned money.
He also confessed to stealing an iPhone worth N450,000,00.
The charge had read, “That you Ayanrinde Abdulgafar on the 22nd day of May, 2023, at the Osun State High Court, Oke-Fia, Osogbo, Osun State, in the Osogbo Magisterial District, willfully represented yourself to one Abdulsalam Adbulhafeez Abiodun that you are a legal practitioner and did pretend that you are qualified to act as a legal practitioner, representation which you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 22(1) of the Legal Practitioners Act, Cap L11, LFN 2004 and punishable under the same section.
Legaldeskng
