An 88-year-old grandfather, Olusola Alaba, has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over an alleged N1.4 million scam. The old man was this week charged before a Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja for allegedly obtaining money under false pretext and forgery.

Alaba was accused of fraudulently obtaining N1.4M from one Mrs. Olutoyin Ogundipe, on June 20, 2011 for the purchase of a three bedroom flat located at Plot 8 Oladimeji Alo Street, Lekki Phase One.

EFCC prosecutor, Mr Francis Usani further accused Alaba of forging four international passports in the names of Babatunde Savage, Anthony Okundalaye, Lateef Alli and Magnus Obe, to facilitate the fraudulent act.

Defending himself, Alaba who was a former member of the Western House of Assembly, pleaded not guilty to the charges leveled against him . His defense counsel, Mrs. Mercy Emuveyan prayed the court to consider the defendant’s age and health condition and appealed to the Judge to remand him in EFCC custody pending the filing of his bail application.

Justice Okunnu who presided over the case remanded the defendant in EFCC custody and adjourned the case to March, 26 2013.

 

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has opposed the request by former Gombe State governor, Danjuma Goje to transfer his trial for conspiracy and money laundering from the Federal High Court Gombe to Abuja. Goje and five others (Aliyu El-Nafaty, Sambo Tumu, S.M. Dokoro and S.M. Dokoro Gombe) are standing trial before Justice Babatunde O. Quadri. At today sitting, the defence team led by Chris Uche, SAN drew the court’s attention to the letter written to the Chief Justice of the Federation for change of venue and transfer of the case from the present court in Gombe to Abuja or any other jurisdiction outside Gombe state for security reasons. He urged the court to suspend proceedings while awaiting the directive from the CJN, before hearing of the pending application. But prosecution Counsel, Wahab Shittu objected, saying the court can continue with the matter pending any response from the CJN.

Justice Quadri upheld the prosecution’s argument and urged both counsel to consider the stress of coming from outside Gombe and seize the opportunity of time.

Arguing his motion for transfer before the court, Chris Uche, SAN quoted sections of the Federal High Court Act 2004 and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to support his motion. He predicated his request on the grounds that the matter is a high profile one and that the security situation in the North East zone with regularly reported incidents of killings, kidnappings, bomb blasts and assassinations underline the need to protect the lives of the accused persons and their lawyers.

In his response, Shittu, called the court’s attention to the fact that in all the proceedings prior to the application, there had been no incident in court to warrant the request for transfer. According to Wahab, “this application lacks merit and only determined to delay the wheel of justice and your lordship is entitled to resist it”. He further queried the intention of the defence: “What is the application saying, that your lordship should transfer this case to Abuja? The presumption is that Abuja is safe to hear this case. Do we believe them? Or is the applicant saying that the case should be transferred to the Villa since they deposed in paragraph 13 of their affidavit that the last Independence Day was moved out of its traditional place – the Eagle Square -to the villa for security reasons?”

Shittu urged the court to throw out the application as acceding to it would be tantamount to setting a precedence which may encourage other persons with cases before the court to seek transfer of their cases to choice places.

Justice Quadri has fixed ruling on the matter for today, January 23, 2013.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Thursday, January 17, 2013 arraigned Eugene Okpala, a retired Colonel, before the Federal High Court, Enugu on a seven count charge of forgery, and obtaining money under false pretence.

Okpala and others who are currently at large had in August 2008 allegedly conspired and sold a plot of land at Independence Layout, Enugu. The plot of land which belonged to Chief Philip Asiodu was sold to Dominion City Church for N34million (thirty four million naira).

The Church which petitioned the Commission claimed it bought the land after inquiries at the Ministry of Lands which clearly showed that the proprietary rights to the land originally leased to Asiodu by the government in 1977 had been transferred to Col. Okpala (rtd) and that based on the information, the Church negotiated and bought the property from Col. Okpala for N34m plus a five percent agency fee. The transaction was allegedly funded on behalf of the church by Bank PHB Plc (now Keystone Bank Limited).

The money was to be paid in three instalments but Col. Okpala claimed he was owing a certain ‘Chief’ who had the original document to the land the sum of N14m and that the ‘chief’ will only release the document if he was paid the said amount. An agreement was reached to pay the money and Col. Okpala invited the “Chief” to Bank PHB where N14m was paid to him. Col. Okpala asked for an additional N1m which was given to him.

Thereafter, Col. Okpala disappeared.

In 2010 the church tried to develop the property but was stopped by Asiodu’s attorney who informed them that the property was never sold to anyone.

Investigations later revealed that the documents which Col. Okpala claimed were given to him by Chief Asiodu were forged.

One of the charges against the accused reads: “that you, Eugene Okpala and Christ Onu, Emeka, Dr Maduabuchi and others (all still at large), sometime in August 2008 at Enugu conspired to commit offence by obtaining money under false pretense and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 8(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2006 and punishable under section 1(3) of the same Act””.

Okpala pleaded not guilty to all seven count charge.

The prosecuting counsel, M. H. Ibekwute then asked the court to remand the accused in prison and fix a date for the commencement of trial. An oral bail application by the defense counsel, J. E. Orji was rejected by the trial judge, Justice M. Shuaibu ordered that the accused be remanded in EFCC custody and adjourned proceedings to January 22, 2013 for commencement of trial.