Pension scam: Ex-manager of defunct Oceanic Bank siphoned N1.9bn --- EFCC witness
(Nigeria) An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC operative,
Mustapha Sani, on Thursday told a Federal High Court in Abuja that Udusegbe
Eric, an ex-manager of defunct Oceanic Bank, used five ``fictitious’’ companies
to illegally siphon N1.9 billion from the Federal Pension Account.
Sani, the Head of Forensic Accounting at the Commission,
said Eric gave instruction for the money to be remitted between March and May
2010.
The witness, who was a member of the team that investigated
the transaction, said Eric also conspired to institute two other payment
mandates from the defunct FinBank.
According to the witness, the payment mandates were
instructions that gave room for the remittances of another N94 million to ghost
pensioners.
``The mandates were valued at N49 million and N45 million
respectively, with each having 16 transactions paid to several ghost
beneficiaries.
Sani said that the accused was neither a staff of the Office
of the Head of Civil Service nor their contractor.
``We further discovered in the cause of our investigation
that Eric and Sani Teidi, a former Director, Pension Accounts at the Head of
Service, were close associates.
Eric is standing trial along with Sani Teidi, a former
Director of Pension Accounts at the Office of the Head of Service of the
Federation, over missing N5.7 billion pension funds.
40 other people are standing trial for similar offence.
The list of accused persons has been broken down into seven
suits for easy prosecution and management.
However, the witness’ testimony was momentarily discontinued
when the defence counsel jointly urged the court to compel Chief Godwin Obla,
the prosecutor to tender the witness’ statement rather than narrate it.
Obla objected to the prayer, saying that the court should
allow the witness to prepare grounds for the documents to be tendered.
When the five confessional statements credited to the second
accused (Eric) were eventually sought to be tendered, his counsel objected to
it.
Mr Adewale Adegoke, the counsel to Eric, said the documents
were functions of inducement, as according to him, a ``trial-within-trial’’ was
required to ascertain the authenticity of the content of the documents.
However, the prosecutor was opposed to the court granting
such application on the grounds that the
counsel to the accused person did not raise objection while filing his notice
of compliance.
Obla submitted further that the demand by the second accused
person’s defence team was a total disregard to the practised direction of the
court.
Ameh, the counsel to the first accused person (Teidi), while
trying to assist the court to unravel the controversy, said criminal trials
were guided by the Evidence Act.
He explained that where the content of the Evidence Act
clash with the Practice direction, the former must be sustained in the interest
of justice and fair hearing.
In his ruling, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, granted the
application and fixed Friday, November 29 for the opening of a
trial-within-trial.
``I did not view it from the perspective of fair hearing at
first, but Mr Sunday Ameh, SAN, has actually opened my eyes to tread
cautiously. Whatever we do here is subject to test at the appellate courts; in
view of the weighty nature of the charge, we must ensure fair hearing and
justice,’’ he held.
Similarly, the hearing of the charge against Aliyu Bello and
Abdullahi Omeza was stalled because of objections raised on the admissibility
of their confessional statements.
Bello, a former staff of the Pension Accounts in the Office
of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, is accused of illegally
appropriating the sum of N41 million pension funds.
In a similar vein, Omeza is accused of using 13 different
banks accounts to convert the sum of N191 million pension funds to himself.
Mr Mahoud Magaji, SAN, the counsel to both accused persons
urged the court to resist the ploy by the prosecutor to dump an induced
confessional statements credited to Bello and Omeza.
Obla, the prosecutor, had earlier urged the court to adopt
similar measure of trial-within-trial granted the first set of accused persons,
in order not to waste the time of the court.
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