Impact Stories
Imeh is a thirty-eight-year old Indigene of Akwa Ibom State. He is married with 3 children. Wanting a better life for himself and his family, he moved to Lagos sometime in 2020 with his Uncle. On getting to Lagos, he got a job at a pure water company and was their driver/water delivery officer.
After staying in Lagos for a few months, Imeh lost his Uncle due to a brief illness. In need of money to cater for the burial expenses, Imeh took N98,000 out the proceed of the day’s sale and remitted the balance of N1,000,000.00 to the company’s account, instead of N1,098,000. The next day, Imeh told his manager the truth of what transpired with the money and his manager told him not to worry and to drop the keys to the truck.
However, on getting home on the 14th day of August 2020, Imeh met some Policemen at the entrance of his house with his manager in attendance. He approached the Policemen to know if there was any issue and he was asked if he knew the manager and he said yes. After the affirmation, he was asked to get into the vehicle and taken to the police station.
Arriving at the station, the manager told the Policemen that the sum taken by Imeh was N250,000 and not N98,000. Imeh not wanting to drag the issue with his manager, agreed to the sum despite saying its N98,000 he took. He wrote an undertaken at the police station to repay the money, but the manager was not satisfied with that and asked the Police to charge Imeh to court; thus, he was charged for stealing. Despite being charged to court, he was remanded at the Police Station for eight months due to the congestion at the prison before he was taken to the correctional center in April 2021.
On arraignment on the 18th day of August, 2020, he was granted bail in court but unable to perfect his bail since he has no family in Lagos State. The matter was adjourned severally as the courts were not siting due to the pandemic and judiciary also embarked on a strike.
On the 29th of June, 2021 Imeh met Headfort Foundation's Lawyer stationed at the Ogba Magistrate Court (one of the Mobile Office of our “Lawyers Without Border” Project) and his brief was taken. Our lawyer carried out a court search to know the state of the matter.
On the 8th day of July 2021, our lawyer represented Imeh in court and made an application for striking out of the charges against him. The Court granted our application and the Imeh was discharged.
Imeh spent eleven months in custody before his release.
