Civil Servants Arrested for Alleged N83.5m Fraud

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The Ibadan Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 charged three people before Justice Ladiran Akintola of the Oyo State High Court, Ibadan for diversion of N83,500, 000 (Eighty Three Million, Five Hundred Thousand) obtained as loan for the cooperative members.

The suspects, which include Mr. Adegoke Johnson Adebayo, Ayodele Elijah Olubunmi Sunday and Adelowo Waheed Adewole,  are staff of Osun State Environmental Protection Commission, and president, secretary and treasurer of the Commission’s staff cooperative society, respectively, allegedly approached First Bank of Nigeria sometimes in 2014 to obtain the loan with falsely pretense that it was made for the members of the Cooperative.

One of the charges read: That you, Adegoke Johnson Adebayo (President), Ayodele Elijah Olubunmi Sunday(Secretary) and Adelowo Waheed Adewole (Treasurer) and Gbenga Joseph Zacheus (at large) sometime in the year 2014, at Yemetu, Ibadan, within the Ibadan Judicial Division of this honourable court, obtained the sum of N83,500,000.00 (Eighty Three Million and Five Hundred Thousand Naira) only from First Bank of Nigeria Limited by falsely pretending that it is a loan, strictly for members and staff of the Osun State Environmental Protection Commission (Osogbo) Staff Co-operative Investment and Credit Society Limited which representations you knew to be false and you thereby committed an offence.”

They however pleaded not guilty to the charges, upon which prosecution counsel, Dr. Ben Ubi, applied for a trial date and an order for the defendants to be remanded in a correctional centre, while defence counsel, A. T. Adeleye, informed the court of a joint bail application of her clients which she said, has been served on the prosecution.

The judge ordered that the defendants be remanded in Correctional centres while the case for the hearing of the bail application was adjourned the case till October 14, 2020.

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 (Eighty Three Million, Five Hundred Thousand) 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.

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.

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