A pastor, Friday Okeneji, 29, has been sentenced to two years imprisonment by an Akure Magistrate’s Court for breaking into a shop, where he stole some chemical substances worth N130,000.
Okeneji, the presiding pastor of a church in Iwaro Oka Akoko, Ondo State, was said to have committed the offences on July 2, 2023, at Iwaro Oka Akoko.
The convict, who pleaded guilty to the two-count charge read to him, confessed that he committed the offence to survive.
He told the court that he had no means of livelihood, hence he was forced to commit the offence.
According to him, “I had to pay N150,000 for my mother’s burial coming up in August and I have no means of getting the money.”
The trial magistrate, Damilola Sekoni, in her verdict, said Okeneji was convicted on a two-count charge, adding that the prison term will run concurrently with an option of N100,000 fine.
She enjoined the convict to turn a new leaf and live a righteous life, henceforth. She urged the convict to imbibe true Christian attributes of hard-work and be prayerful as stated in the scriptures.