18th January, 2013
Four youths, Oliver Onyekachi, Tochukwu Chukwu, Sunday Ade and John Eze in Ogoja, northern Cross River State have been sentenced to eight years in prison for vandalising Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, cables.
Justice Emmanuel Ita of the High Court in Ogoja found them guilty of three count charge brought against the accused for vandalising PHCN cables along Market Road in Ishibori.
In the case between the Commissioner of Police and the four young men, they were accused of conspiring to commit the crime by willfully vandalising PHCN cables, malicious damage to public property and stealing public property.
Justice Ita, who found them guilty on each of the charges, sentenced each of them to two years for conspiracy, two years for malicious damage and four years for stealing.
He said the sentences are to run concurrently and therefore each of them is to spend a total of four years in Ogoja prison to “serve as a deterrent to other young men who may be harbouring or planning such evil venture against infrastructure built with public funds to serve general good”.
The youths who were apprehended in July 2012 by the local vigilante while cutting PHCN cables for sale were awaiting trial until Wednesday when judgment was passed against them.
“It has been such an emotional case for one of the convicts, the mother passed on when she heard that her son had been arrested for vandalising PHCN cables,” Adamson, an elder brother to John said.
—EMMA UNA/ Calabar