Stealing and Forgery: Anambra former commissioner arraign over N265m by EFCC

Channels – A former Commissioner for Youth and Sports, Anambra State, Prince Okay Aroh and a former banker with United Bank for Africa, Abimbola Oluwaniyi, were on Thursday, May 15, 2014 arraigned before Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja on a 6- count charge bordering on conspiracy, stealing, forgery and uttering to the tune of N265million (Two Hundred and Sixty Five Million Naira).

The former Commissioner and his accomplice ran into trouble, when a petitioner wrote to the EFCC alleging that, in 2009, he deposited N265, 000,000.00 (Two Hundred and Sixty Five Million Naira) in a fixed deposit account with the United Bank for Africa, through the defendants, only for him to discover in 2012, upon maturity of his deposit, that the investment was non-existent in the bank’s record.

Okay was Branch Manager of UBA, Idumota 2 Business Office at the time the transaction took place.

One of the charges read: “Prince Okay Aroh and Abimbola Oluwaniyi between August 2008 and December, 2009 at Lagos within the Ikeja Judicial Division, whilst being the Branch Manager and Relationships Officer respectively of Oke Arin 2 branch of United Bank for Africa Plc stole the sum of N108M (One Hundred and Eight Million Naira) property of United Bank for Africa Plc”.

When the charges were read to the defendants, they pleaded not guilty.

In view of the plea of the defendants, prosecuting counsel, George Adebola, prayed the court to fix a date for trial and to remand them in prison custody.

Counsel to the 1st defendant, Vincent Nwana, objected the plea of the prosecuting counsel and prayed the court to grant his client bail on liberal terms. He informed the court that the 1st defendant had already made an agreement for payment.  “My Lord, the 1st defendant has shown that he will not jump bail, he has good sureties in court who are ready to show up at any time”, he said.

In the same vein, counsel to the 2nd defendant, Nonye Anyaegbunam, prayed the court to grant the defendant bail on the grounds that she only carried out duties as instructed by the 1st defendant.

Justice Ipaye granted the 1st defendant bail in the sum of N5million and two sureties with a security of N2 million (Two Million Naira only).  One of the sureties should be a relation of the defendants. The sureties shall be residents of Lagos State and shall provide evidence of tax payments for three years.

The second defendant was also granted bail in the sum of N2million (Two Million Naira only) and two sureties in like sum. The sureties must present evidence of tax payments.

Justice Ipaye adjourned the case to July 3, 8 and 11, 2014 for trial and ordered that the defendants be remanded in Kirikiri Maximum Prison pending the perfection of their bail conditions.

Stealing and Forgery: Anambra former commissioner arraign over N265m by EFCC