Magistrate Adeola Adedayo, has alleged that she had received threats on her life from two defendants Sulaiman Sanusi and Kehinde Sanusi over whose case she was presiding over.
The duo are children of a dead Lagos business mogul, Chief Abdul-Rasak Sanusi.
They were both charged over illegal possession of arms and disrespecting a court order.
The two defendants were scheduled to be arraigned in court were very much absent.
However, the Magistrate who had earlier sounded an alarm over threat to her life by the defendants disclosed that the case file was no longer with her due to the fact that the Chief Judge of Lagos State; Justice Oluwafunmilayo Atilade had taken over the case, so therefore he was in custody of the file.
Earlier on, the charge was as a result of a suit that was instituted in 2002 by Suleiman and two other of his siblings against three of their siblings, who were appointed by their late father as the executors of his estate.
The suit marked ID/904M/2002 had as its plaintiffs Sulaiman, Risikat Olusanya and Ganiyat Sanusi.
The respondents of the case were Abdul- Mojeed Sanusi, Falilat Sanusi-Lawal, and Bilikisu Sanusi; the appointed executors of the Sanusi’s estate.
The respondents were accused by the claimants of mismanaging their father’ estate.
Justice Williams- Dawodu, the presiding judge back then had reached a verdict which held that the first applicant (Sulaiman) should deliver or surrender all documents in his custody to the estate.
judge Dawodu ordered the executors (respondents) to resume joint management of the estate as stated by their late father’s will executed by the late F.R.A Williams (SAN).
The respondents (executors) were also commanded to submit a report of stewardship on the estate to the court but they had alleged that the first applicant (Sulaiman) has not surrendered all the documents in his custody as directed by the court’s ruling in 2006.
The first defendant, Sulaiman Sanusi was charged to court by the DPP over illegal possession of firearms, while Kehinde Sanusi, his younger brother was released following lack of evidence to link him to the offence.
In the charge marked A/143/2014 instituted by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Sulaiman was accused of unlawful possession of firearms. The police stated that the Sanusi siblings had acted contrary to Section 104 (1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011 and Section 4 of the Nigerian Firearms Act.
Magistrate Adedayo of an Igbosere Magistrate’s court, during last sitting of the case alleged that she had received threat letters delivered to her residence from the defendants who were yet to be arraigned. She cried out that her life was threatened as the defendants knew her house and given details of her life in the letters.
‘I don’t know why a defendant should know my house. My life is at risk. I feel very threatened. Let the world know about it so that if anything happens to me and any member of my family the whole world will know who to hold’, she said.
