Following the arraignment of Sixty suspected cultists at the Yaba magistrates court in Lagos on Wednesday March 31, Forty-nine persons have pleaded not guilty to alleged offenses ranging from cultism, illegal possession of weapons and conducts likely to cause breach of peace.
Chief Magistrate Adeola Adebayo admitted only four of them to bail of 100,000 naira each and they are to provide two sureties each that must be verified.
The Nigeria police force presented Sixty suspects in all comprising Forty-eight men and Twelve women in court on Wednesday.
They are aged between Nineteen and Fifty-four years of age, about twelve of them including two females are also facing murder charges in which one Jimoh Anibaba was allegedly killed in February at Imota.
Eleven suspects accused of belonging to aiye, bucaneer, alora and kegit confraternities in the Maya ofin area of Ikorodu and in Isolo were first heard.
But instead of taking their pleas, the chief magistrate ordered that the eleven first be remanded in prison custody for fourteen days pending an advice from the states director of public prosecution as the prescribed punishment for their offences if found guilty outside the courts jurisdiction.
All the accused persons are being tried under the 2015 criminal laws of Lagos and the 2021 unlawful Society and cultism prohibition law in the State.
The court adjourned to April 6 for all the defense counsel in the trial of the Forty-nine to show proof that the defendants are already before another magistrate court to determine it’s next line of action.
