“Sold property with fake C of O belonged to deceased” – Witness

Lagos – A prosecution witness, Adegboye Bajulaiye revealed to Lagos High Court how a convict sold property belonging to Late Mrs Francisca Awolaja  without the approval of his family.

He disclosed while testifying in the ongoing trial of a convicted legal practitioner, Kole Bello, and three others who allegedly used a fake C of O.

They 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 with reference no. 63/63/1989, dated Sept. 28,1989, “with the intent that it may be acted upon as genuine.”

They were also  alleged to have  forged C of O  in order to take over a plot of land which is the Estate of late Mrs Francisca Awolaja, and also arranged for someone to impersonate the late Awolaja in other to fraudulently convey her land to one Mr Rotimi Olubeko, a Lagos based business man for the sum of N5 million.

Testifying,the witness, told the court that the convicted lawyer (Bello) who is currently serving jail term for similar offence, eight years after death of late Mrs Awolaja, Bello and others impersonated the deceased to sell her land at Lekki Peninsula Scheme 1 to the businessman, Olubeko with forged C of O.

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

He added that in order to unearth how the convict sold property of the deceased eight years after her death, the Awolajas’ family asked him to write many petitions to appropriate authorities, conducted series of investigations and filed suit.

“It was as a result of effort to unravel the misery surrounding sale of the deceased land by her children, husband  and myself, despite having original C of O of the land in their possession  that took us many police stations and filed suit against purported sellers and buyer of the land in question.

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

Credit: Independent