Lockdown: Ekiti court convicts truck driver, 3 others for flouting interstate travel order

An Ekiti State chief magistrate court in Ado Ekiti has convicted a truck driver and three passengers for defying the interstate lockdown order that the federal government put in place as part of its efforts to curtail the coronavirus spread.

The four persons – Afolabi Shuaib, Daramola Sulaimon, Ibe Gregory and Adeniyi Idowu were found at Igbara-Odo, a border town in Ekiti State, hiding in a truck coming from Lagos.

The magistrate, Abdulhamid Lawal, imposed a fine of N30,000 on Shuaib, the driver, while he fined the three passengers N10,000 each for the offences.

The prosecutor, Mr Clement Ayoola, the Director of Evaluation and Monitoring Department in the Ministry of Justice, told the court yesterday that the driver converted his truck, registration number EPE 964 LP, to a commercial vehicle and illegally transported the other defendants from Alaba Market in Lagos State to Ekiti State.

All the defendants pleaded guilty in court to the three-count charge levelled against them.

Lawal, in his ruling, noted that Lagos, where the defendants were coming from, was the epicentre of the coronavirus scourge in Nigeria, and Alaba market, a hotspot of the possible spread of the virus.