National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Folake Sokoya
Network on Police Reform in Nigeria NOPRIN, has petitioned the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, Imota police division over a complaint from one Mr. Felix Nwafor Okechukwu of no. 3, Okenwa Street, off Powerline, Ikorodu concerning alleged acts of fraud committed against him by one Deborah Akinnuyi of No. 4, Love Street, Adamo Ikorodu, Lagos State.
Mr. Okechukwu, alleged that Mrs. Deborah Akinnuyi collected his car and the sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand naira (#750,000.00) in exchange for three (3) plots of land, but later re-sold the land and has, despite directives by the DPO Imota Police Station, refused to refund him the total cash value for the land and other losses and has also continued to threaten him.
It will be recall that sometime in 2016, Deborah Akinnuyi was said to have approached Okechukwu and informed him about a three (3) plots of land belonging to her and available for sale. He showed interest but couldn’t raise enough cash and when he informed her that he didn’t have enough cash at the time to buy the land, she convinced him to exchange his car for the land.
The deal was finally sealed on January 12, 2016 when he entered an agreement with her in which he released his car a Mercury Villager (that was said to worth the sum of five hundred thousand naira (#500,000. 00) to her in exchange for her three (3) plots of land, and additionally paid her the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand naira (#250,000.00 ) summing up to seven hundred and fifty thousand naira (#750, 000.00) and a receipt for the said sum was issued to Mr. Nwafor Okechukwu by Mrs. Akinnuyi for the said land.
Okechukwu was said to have hired workers who cleared the land and cultivated cash crops such as plantain, maize etc. immediately the land transaction was completed but got the shock of his life when four months later his hired workers went back to weed the farm and discovered that the cash crops had been uprooted and destroyed and has been replaced with a structure which had been erected on one of the plots while the other two had been fenced round.
He immediately called Mrs. Akinuyi to inform her about the development which amounted to trespass and malicious damage, and she promised to call him back, a promise she didn’t fulfill until three days after when he received a call from Imota Police Station where Mrs. Akinnuyi had lodged a false ‘threat to life’ complaint against him, a complaint he denied but narrated what actually transpired to the division crime officer that was in- charge of the case.
Akinnuyi did not deny Okechukwu’s story, so the DCO asked her to make a choice between returning the land and refunding the monetary value to him, she was said to have grudgingly agreed to refund the money and she later refunded the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand naira, money for a plot of land.
Subsequently, when he called her on phone to demand the balance of payment for the remaining two (2) plots, she would rain abuses on him, threaten and warn him never to call her number again. The last time he claimed to have called her was on February 19, 2017.
When our reporter called Mrs. Akinnuyi to hear her own side of the story, she cut off the line and didn’t pick again.
NOPRIN considers the action of Mrs. Deborah Akinnuyi a criminal and reprehensible act and is requesting that the DPO Imota police division to use his good office to make sure that Mrs. Akiinnuyi pays Okechukwu his balance if she cannot give him his land.
“Her refusal to refund the outstanding payment for two plots after paying for only one, contrary to her undertaking at the police station and her further resort to threatening the crime victim amounts to impunity and should not to be tolerated. We request you to kindly ensure that Mrs. Deborah Akinnuyi is compelled to pay the balance for the two plots to Mr. Okechukwu. Otherwise, she should be prosecuted for her crimes.” NOPRIN requested.
