By Sunday Apah
Justice F.N. Ogazi of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Friday, 7 August 2026, pronounced four individuals guilty and imposed custodial sentences of two and six months respectively for transgressions involving unauthorized foreign-exchange dealings and the illicit commodification of naira banknotes.
The adjudged offenders—Ahmad Umar Baros, Aminu Umar Injay, Yusuf Suleimon and Olasunbo Sholanke—had been independently arraigned the preceding day by the Lagos Zonal Directorate 1 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on discrete one-count indictments.
The indictment preferred against Baros alleged that he, at a material time in 2026 within Lagos State and the court’s territorial competence, conducted foreign-exchange transactions outside the officially sanctioned market, thereby contravening Section 11(1)(a) of the National Economic Intelligence Committee (Establishment etc.) Act, 1994, an offence punishable under Section 11(2) of the same statute.
Yusuf Suleimon and Olasunbo Sholanke faced separate accusations of the unlawful sale and trafficking of naira notes. One representative charge asserted that Suleimon, on or about 25 July 2026 in Lagos, sold and traded in notes issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria, thereby violating Section 21(4) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007 (as amended), punishable under Section 21(1) thereof.
Each defendant entered an unequivocal plea of guilt upon the charges being formally read.
Thereafter, prosecuting counsel N.K. Ukoha, Ebuka Okongwu and U.S. Kyari recapitulated the evidential matrix and petitioned the court to record convictions and impose commensurate penalties.
In the consequential judgment, Justice Ogazi held all four defendants criminally liable, consigning Ahmad Umar Baros to two months’ imprisonment while the remaining trio each received six-month terms, subject to the alternative of a ₦100,000 fine per convict.
