CITY NEWS ‘Dead woman’s property sold with forged C of O’

A court in Lagos has been told how a Lagos-based businessman, Mr Rotimi Olubeko, acquired a landed property belonging to a dead woman, Mrs Francisca Awolaja, without the consent of the deceased’s family.

A prosecution witness, Adegboye Bajulaiye, revealed this to Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of the Lagos State High Court, Igbosere, while testifying in the ongoing trial of a legal practitioner, Kole Bello, and three others who allegedly forged the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) of a land.

Bello is standing trial on a three-count charge of conspiracy, fraud and forgery, alongside Chukwu Victor, Friday Palmer and Osumah Terry.

The three men were alleged to have committed the offences sometime in December 2001 at Lekki Peninsula Scheme 1, Lagos.

According to the charge, the defendants allegedly conspired among themselves and forged a C of O reference no. 63/63/1989, dated September 28, 1989 “with the intent that it may be acted upon as genuine” and with a view to taking over a plot of land said to be the estate of the late Mrs Awolaja.

The men were also alleged to have arranged for someone to impersonate the late Awolaja in other to fraudulently convey her land to one Mr Rotimi Olubeko for the sum of N5 million.

Bajulaiye, a lawyer, told the court that eight years after Mrs Awolaja’s death, Bello, who was understood to be currently serving a jail term for a similar offence, and the others impersonated the deceased to sell her land at Lekki Peninsula Scheme 1 to the businessman, Olubeko, with a forged C of O.

Bajuaiye said he had knowledge of how the defendants perpetrated the crime due to his involvement in the civil suit the family of the deceased filed against Olubeko, Bello, Terry and others at the State High Court.

The witness told the court that in order to unravel the mystery of how the deceased’s property was sold eight years after her death, the Awolaja family directed him to write many petitions to the appropriate authorities, conduct series of investigations and a file suit against the purported sellers and buyer of the land in question.

“In the process, an official the State Ministry of Lands, Olanipekun Cole, who was subpoenaed to give evidence, revealed that it was a photocopy of the original C of O in the file at the ministry that was illegally removed and cloned by the defendants to sell the land.

“At the State High Court, we won the suit filed against them, but they appealed. At the Appeal Court again, the deceased’s family also won. The matter is currently before the Supreme Court,” he said.

Justice Taiwo has adjourned further hearing in the matter till January 15 and 16, 2018.