There are some stories you read and you will wonder if this is a true-life story. But the truth is, this is a daily reoccurrence and I only share these stories with the permission of the client, so we can learn and become wiser.

We litigate for a pioneer credit card company in Nigeria as enforcement officers. Debt recovery, mortgage and e-fraud defence cases constitute over 60% of our caseload the criminal defence cases constitute between 10-15% of our caseload, so we are always in court for one reason or the other.

It was on one of those serious debt recovery cases that took me to her court that faithful day. I had perfected my trial plan in the line with my case theory earlier in the week, so there I was, relaxed and flowing with the proceeding of the court. I am always happy to appear in her Honour's court. She sits exactly 9.am and she is diligent in duties. She takes her time to study all her case files before sitting, so she knows every little detail in her case file. Woe betides any counsel appearing in her court that failed to study his/her file, she will make minced meat of them to the extent that they regret coming to her court that day. She does not grant unnecessary adjournment. Your case must proceed except there is a compelling reason why it should not.

Number 22 in the court's docket was a criminal matter, and it wasn't my business until the court made it my business. At first, I was mad at the court for be-labouring me with a pro bono court case, but the freedom of the standing trial was at stake. The principal complainant was a national bank having its headquarters in Marina, Lagos State, and they were determined to make mincemeat of the accused. The witnesses were senior management staff of the bank.

The business of the day was the cross-examination of PW1. The witness was in court, the prosecutor was ready, but the defence lawyer had bailed on the accused. He stopped coming to court immediately he secured the bail of the accused. I later discovered the accused bank accounts were frozen, and so he could not access cash to perfect his bail, or afford the services of a defence counsel.

It was his 7th month in detention and he accused of stealing the identity of the nominal complainant who is his secondary school friend. He used this information to gain access into his bank account and withdrew about N1.2million plus.

Is this a true story?

The nominal complainant's case is that he contacted the accused who resides in Lagos to accompany him to buy a truck for wood business. He posited in his statement that the accused accommodated him for the night and that they went to Berger together the following day for the truck.

He also stated that before they could find a truck of his choice, it was already late and the cost of the truck was also more than his budget. They could not buy the truck that day and therefore retired to the accused residence to plan a way out.

That the accused advised him that it was better he returned back to Akure and raise the balance to buy the truck of his choice. He also advised him that his will reduced the possibility of an early breakdown of the truck which might cost him more money in the future.

The nominal complainant further posited that he took his friend's advise and he, therefore, decided to celebrate this milestone with the accused, and they went out to quaff some bottles of beer.

During the course of quaffing beer, his phone died, he needed to call his wife to tell her the good news. That the accused offered him his phone, he inserted his sim and called his wife. That the accused wanted to make use of his phone and in the course of removing his sim, it fell from him and they could not find it.

Unknown to him, the accused was the one who stole the sim and pretended to join him in searching for the lost sim. He left for Akure the next morning and the accused immediately swung into action.

He used the nominal complainant's SIM to access his BVN, his bank account and transferred the sum of 1.2million plus within 72hours. He also went into the banking halls to make some of the transfers. He was arrested in the course of the last transfer for 350k that failed.