BY ONOZURE DANIA

Lagos—A couple, Babatunde and Adedoyin Ogunmefun, is facing trial at an Ikeja magistrate Court for conspiracy, birth certificate forgery and threat to life.

Consequently, Magistrate Abimbola Komolafe has fixed June 18, 2014, for the trial of the couple, after dismissing  an application filed by their counsel, A. Olanrewaju over  defect in the charge sheet  read to them when they were first arraigned on November 23, 2013, over the jurisdiction of the court to hear the matter.

Komolafe in her ruling, dismissed the application on the ground that the court had jurisdiction to hear the matter, adding that the counsel ought to have either objected to the charge sheet before it was read in court or after it was read, before the defendants took their plea.

The Magistrate ruled that when the charge was read to the defendants, they were asked if they understood the charge before taking their plea, to which they answered in the affirmative, adding that explained the reason the trial must go on.

Magistrate Komolafe, further noted that the only argument of the prosecutor was that the defendants pleaded not guilty, which meant trial could go on.
She however noted that on November 23, 2013, when the charge was read to the defendants, their counsel didn’t raise any objection to the charge sheet that it was defective and could not, therefore, come up with such an argument of a defective charge sheet now that trail was about to commence.

It will be recalled that Adedoyin Ogunmefun 33 and her husband, Babatunde, 38, had been arraigned on November 23, 2013, before an Ikeja Magistrate Court over alleged conspiracy, forgery and threat to life.
The defendants who reside at Block 31, plot 1, Abudu Odusanya Street Isheri Magodo area of Lagos, were docked before Magistrate Abimbola Komolafe.

Police prosecutor, Benson Emuerhi, had told the court that the defendants on December 14, 2011, at the National Population Commission Registration Centre, Oregun PHC at Ikeja, forged birth certificates , A08 No 0268922  and A08 NO 0268923, of the children of the complainant, one Mr Abraham Okoro, the first husband of the first defendant.