‘I wear Army uniform to evade paying transport fare’
A 22-year-old man, Francis John, man who was docked before an Ikeja chief magistrate’s court, yesterday told the presiding magistrate that he bought an Army uniform to avoid paying transport fare.
John said that as an applicant, he had to devise a trick that would enable him shuttle from one place to another in any commercial bus without paying any fare.
The accused, however, refused to disclose who sold the uniform to him.
The prosecutor, Mr Benson Emuerhi, told the court that some military personnel at the Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre, Oshodi arrested the accused dressed in military uniform and bearing card.
“When he was interrogated by the military personnel at the NAFRC, he said he joined the Army about three years ago. He was later handed over to the police at Akinpelu Division,” the prosecutor said.
It was at the police station that John was said to have admitted not joining the military and that the uniform an Army identity was a decoy to avoid paying fares in commercial buses.
The police charged him before the Ikeja Magistrate’s court with impersonation and unlawful possession of fake military identity cards. John pleaded guilty. The court ordered that he should be remanded in prison custody pending the time the prosecutor would present the facts for sentence.