4 security guards bag 20 months jail term for negligent conduct

A Karmo Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, on Monday sentenced four security guards to five months imprisonment each for negligent conduct in a housing estate under their watch which resulted to successful robbery.

The guards, Sunday Onumiya, 22; Nkem Nwachukwu, 35; Simon Luka, 25; Salihu Yahuza, 22, all of Safetech Security Company, Abuja, were convicted after they pleaded guilty to a count charge of negligent conduct.

The judge, Abubakar Sadiq, however, gave the convicts an option of N10,000 fine each.

Sadiq said the punishment would have been stiffer had the convicts not saved the court the pains of protracted prosecution.

He warned the convicts to take their jobs more seriously.

The prosecuting counsel, Mrs Florence Avhioboh, had told the court that on Sept. 3, Oke Obisoye of Sigma Estate, Jabi, Abuja, reported a case of robbery at the Utako Police Station.

Avhioboh explained that the convicts were employed as security guards by the security company which deployed them to Sigma Estate, Jabi, Abuja, to secure the property of residents living in the estate.

The prosecutor said that the four security guards abandoned their duty posts at the time the crime was committed.

She said the convicts’ action paved way for unknown persons to gain access into the estate, cut the electric wire fence and entered one Alhaji Anka Sani’s house.

Avhioboh said the thieves broke into Sani’s house and stole his LED 50 inches television set, the value of which is yet to be ascertained.

The prosecutor said the security guards could not give satisfactory explanation of how the estate’s security was breached.

She said the offence contravened Section 196 of the Penal Code. (NAN)