Civil Servants Land In Jail Over N83.5m Fraud In Osun

Three workers under the Osun State government identified as; Adegoke Johnson Adebayo; Ayodele Elijah Olubunmi Sunday and Adelowo Waheed Adewole, were arraigned before the Oyo State High Court, Ibadan by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Wednesday, 7th October, 2020 for N83,500, 000 loan fraud.

According to the report, the suspects are staff of Osun State Environmental Protection Commission, and president, secretary and treasurer of the Commission’s staff cooperative society, respectively, allegedly diverted the sum of N83,500, 000 obtained as loan for the cooperative members.

They werew arraigned on the account of a 10-count charge, comprises of conspiracy, abuse of office, stealing, forgery, altering, and obtaining money under false pretence against them.

The defence counsel, A.T Adeleye pleaded not guilty to the charges on behalf of the suspects and informed the court of a joint bail application of her clients which she said, has been served on the prosecution.

The source disclosed that trouble started for the defendants following a First Bank of Nigeria PLC petition to the EFCC, alleging that the threesome, sometime in 2014 approached the bank for a loan facility to the tune of N83,500, 000 on behalf of members of the society, but discovered a foul play as the loan beneficiaries began making the repayment in amounts that fell far below the agreed monthly installment.

The prosecuting counsel, Dr Ben Ubi, said, in the course of investigations the EFCC discovered that the defendants cooked up the list of the loan beneficiaries and other documents they presented to the bank for the processing of the loan, and latter applied for a trial date and an order for the defendants to be remanded in a correctional facility.

The judge, Justice Ladiran Akintola adjourned the case till October 14, 2020 for the hearing of the bail application and ordered that the defendants be remanded in the custody of Nigerian Correctional Service.

Source: Daily Mail