Actress Omoseyin bags six months jail for stepping on Naira notes

Nigerian actress, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, has been convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment for spraying and stepping on the new Naira notes at a social event in Lagos.

This was disclosed in a statement posted on the official X handle of the EFCC on Thursday.

According to EFCC, she was sentenced and convicted by Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday, February 1, 2024.

The statement partly read, “She was first arraigned on February 13, 2023, by the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on two-count charges, to which she pleaded ‘not guilty.’

“She was subsequently granted bail on February 15, 2023.

“One of the court reads: ‘That you, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, on the 28th day  of January 2023, at Monarch Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst dancing during a social occasion tampered with the sum of N100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand  Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying same in the  said occasion and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.’”

The statement however revealed that at the resumed hearing on Thursday, Omoseyin, changed her “not guilty” plea to “guilty”, in view of the overwhelming evidence against her.

Delivering judgment, Justice Aneke sentenced the defendant to six months imprisonment, effective from Thursday, with an option of N300,000 fine to be paid into the consolidated revenue account of the federation.

PUNCH Online reported in January that the National Orientation Agency warned  the Olu of Owode Egba, Oba Aremo Sowemimo, for abusing the naira notes during his 13th anniversary of ascension to the royal stool.

Sowemimo was seen in a viral video spraying the naira notes on a musician during the ceremony.

Reacting to the video, the NOA Director General, Lanre Issa-Onilu, stated that the display was an abuse of the national currency that attracts imprisonment, fines or both.