February 26, 2024
The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; EFCC, Mr Ola Olukoyede, says the anti-graft agency received over 5,000 fraud petitions and recovered N60bn loot within its first 100 days of his assumption of office of which 3,000 has been approved for investigation.
President Bola Tinubu appointed Olukoyede EFCC chairman on October 12, 2023.
He replaced Abdurasheed Bawa, an appointee of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, who was suspended, detained, and booted out of office by Tinubu.
Olukoyede, speaking on Saturday in Lagos as the guest lecturer at the 20th-anniversary lecture of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resources Centre, said the EFCC had recovered over N60bn and $10m, in less than four months since he assumed office.
He said, “When we set out to investigate, people see it as a fight between EFCC and the rest of us. It should not be so. How much will the EFCC do?
“How much will the ICPC do with its staff strength? I have less than 4,800 staff. I am talking of an agency that is serving people who are over 150 million.
“All we have to do is investigate and present the facts before the court. I will not be the one to give judgment. That is where we have collective responsibility. When you see something, you say something
“The issue is we are working as if we are not working. Upon my assumption of office between then and now, I have received over 5,000 petitions. I am not talking of just the one we received, but the one that we have checked and we discovered that there was substance in it. That is just for one agency, the EFCC.
“As I am talking to you I have approved the investigation of over 3,000 cases in less than four months, but what is our capacity? How many staff do we have? What resources do I have access to?
“In less than four months, we secured convictions of 700 and recovered over N60bn and over $10m.
“If I am able to recover over N60bn in less than 100 days, you can imagine how much has been stolen.
“I can tell you that for the billion that has been recovered, a trillion has been stolen.”
On his part, the Chairman of HEDA, Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, noted that the anti-corruption fight had been challenging and urged all Nigerians to join the fight.
“We need an effective policing system with integrity, then the court must not continue to discharge persons with corruption cases still hanging on their necks,” Suraju said.
February 19, 2024
Operatives of the Port Harcourt Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have arrested a banker, Soberechukwu Inya Ewa and a Point of Sales, POS, cashier, Azubuike Mamwu Obasi for allegedly selling new naira notes to customers for commercial purposes.
A statement issued by the EFCC’s spokesman, Dele Oyewale, said the suspects were arrested in the early hours of Friday, February 15, 2024, at Ecobank, Rumuobiakani and Maddox Night club, new Government Reservation Area, GRA, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
He said preliminary investigation showed that Ewa, a banker, allegedly specializes in selling new naira notes of different denominations to POS cashiers for commercial purposes while Obasi was caught engaging in currency racketeering by charging fees for new naira notes.
“He was arrested while in possession of N554,600.00. The two suspects would soon be charged to court,” Oyewale said.
February 6, 2024
In Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital, a Federal High Court has convicted and sentenced three internet fraudsters (Yahoo-Yahoo) to different jail terms for offences bordering on criminal impersonation, internet fraud, and possession of fraudulent documents.
This is according to a statement by the Spokesperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Dele Oyewale on Monday.
According to the statement, the convicts – Abraham Itoro Sunday, Ezea Chidera Charles, and Udoh Christopher Gabriel were convicted by Justice Chigozie Sergius Onah upon their arraignment by the Uyo Zonal Command of EFCC, on one-count separate charge bordering on cybercrimes.
“That you Abraham Itoro Sunday ‘M’ sometime in 2023 within the jurisdiction of this honourable court did fraudulently impersonate Brian O’ Noel on Facebook with the intent to gain advantage for yourself and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 22 (2)(b)(I) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, prevention) Act 2015 and punishable under the same section,” the charge read.
They pleaded guilty to all the charges when they were read to them.
Based on their pleas, the Prosecution counsel – Enobong Ubokudom and Farida Bukar thereafter prayed the court to convict and sentence them accordingly.
Delivering judgment on Thursday, Justice Onah convicted and sentenced Sunday and Charles to six months imprisonment each with an option of a fine of N200,000.00, while Gabriel bagged a five-month jail term with an option of a fine of N150,000.00.
The court also ordered that the three smartphones used by the convicts to perpetrate the crimes be forfeited to the Federal Government.
The statement noted that “the convicts started their journey to the Correctional Centre when they were arrested by operatives of the Uyo Zonal Command of the EFCC on November 22, 2023, at different locations in Afaha Atai, in Iko Eket Akwa Ibom State.
“Investigation showed that all the convicts impersonated foreigners by using their identities to defraud their victims. While Charles fraudulently portrayed himself as ‘Molina Urovsky’ on Facebook, Sunday portrayed himself as Brian O’niel and Gabriel presented himself as Alexander Douglas on Instagram.”
February 2, 2024
Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday, February 1, 2024, convicted and sentenced one Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, an actress, to six months imprisonment for spraying and stepping on the new Naira notes at a social event in Lagos.
She was first arraigned on February 13, 2023, by the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on two-count charges, to which she pleaded “not guilty”. She was subsequently granted bail on February 15, 2023.
One of the court reads: “That you, Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, on the 28th day of January 2023, at Monarch Event Centre, Lekki, Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst dancing during a social occasion tampered with the sum of N100,000.00 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria by spraying same in the said occasion and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 21(1) of the Central Bank Act, 2007.”
At the resumed hearing on Thursday, Omoseyin, however, changed her “not guilty” plea to “guilty”, in view of the overwhelming evidence against her. Following her “guilty plea”, the prosecution counsel, Z.B. Atiku called Abubakar Mohammed Marafa, an operative of the EFCC, to review the facts of the matter. Marafa recalled that, “the defendant was arrested by officers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, on February 1, 2023, and was handed over to the Commission on February 2, 2023, for further investigation. “ According to him, the defendant’s statement was taken under caution, where she stated that she attended a friend’s wedding on January 28, 2023, and that she sprayed N200 and N100 Naira notes on the occasion. “The defendant was processed and the videos of where she sprayed the money was found on her phone. Also, further investigations were carried out and the management of the event centre was invited. They also brought in the video footage of the said event.”
The prosecution counsel, thereafter, further applied to tender, in evidence, the letter from the ICPC and other accompanying documents, including the extra-judicial statement of the defendant, forensic report of her phone, a CD of videos showing her spraying the naira note, a flash drive from the event centre together with the statement of the representative of the centre. Justice Aneke admitted them as exhibits and convicted the defendant, as charged.
The defence counsel, Afuye Adegbola pleaded for leniency, saying, “She’s a first-time offender; she is a mother of one; she is remorseful and pleads for mercy.” He further pleaded for a non-custodial sentence on behalf of the convict.
Delivering judgment, Justice Aneke sentenced the defendant to six months imprisonment, effective from Thursday, with an option of N300,000.00 (Three Hundred Thousand Naira only) fine to be paid into the consolidated revenue account of the federation.
Omoseyin bagged her imprisonment when she was arrested by operatives of the ICPC along Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, after the video of her spraying and stepping on the newly redesigned Naira notes at a party surfaced online. In the viral video, she was also seen flaunting wads of the new Naira notes.
In her statement to the Commission, she claimed that she received the new Naira notes from her fans at the party and that she did not know the persons who gave her the money. Items recovered from her at the point of arrest include a Range Rover.
