An Ogudu Magistrates' Court, Lagos, on Friday discharged 21 persons, charged over alleged involvement in a clash that occurred in the Ikosi-Ketu axis on June 20.
They had faced a four -count charge of breach of peace, assault, using of charms and damage to property.
Discharging them, the Chief Magistrate, Mrs Omolade Awope, said that there was lack of concrete evidence before the court that they committed the offences for which they were charged.
Awope held that the weapons brought before the court as evidence did not in any way look like those that were used at the scene of the clash.
She also said that there was no mention of the properties destroyed in the clash or their value. ``The 21 accused persons are hereby discharged,’’ she said.
During their arraignment on June 26, they had all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecutor, Cpl. Adekemi Adeniran, had alleged that they were involved in a fight for supremacy over who should collect some fees at the Jakande Market in the Ikosi-Ketu area.
"The accused resorted to using dangerous weapons like cutlasses, hoes, bottles and charms to assault themselves and innocent people,’" she had alleged.
Adeniran told the court that the value of the properties destroyed in the clash had not been ascertained. She said that the offences contravened sections, 45, 171, 166 and 248 of the Criminal Law of Lagos, State, 2011.
However, defence counsel, Mrs Sola Odenike, told the court that the accused persons were innocent and were wrongly arrested, urging the court to free them.
