Crimes

NPA retiree jailed for N24.3m fraud

The Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State, has sentenced a retired official of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Nasiru Ogara, to 14 years imprisonment for engaging in N24.3 million waste bin and vehicle documents fraud.

The presiding judge, Justice Mojisola Dada, while delivering judgement in the case on Wednesday, April 19, held that the prosecution effectively proved the ingredients of the offences filed against the retiree and his company, New Age Motor Waste Basket Limited.

Ogara and New Age Motor Waste Basket Limited were prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a four-count charge bordering on obtaining by false pretence and issuance of dud cheques

Justice Dada, who found the defendants guilty on counts one two and three, sentenced Ogara to 14 years in prison on counts one and two.

She sentenced the NPA retiree to two years jail term on count three.

The judge, however, discharged the defendants on count four.

Justice Dada, who held that the sentences should run concurrently, imposed a fine of N15 million on the retiree’s company (N5 million each on counts one to three).

The judge ordered that the company should be wound up, its assets sold, and the proceeds used to pay the complainant.

The judge also ordered the NPA retiree to restitute N24.3 million to the complainant.

According to EFCC counsel, Nwandu Ukoha, Ogara and the company committed the offences on December 17, 2017.

The commission said Ogara induced the Director of Kelly Newton Nigeria Ltd., Usman Ademoye, to confer a benefit on him by delivering 8,000 units of waste bins worth N5.2 million to him in the understanding that the waste bins would be paid for.

The anti-graft agency stated that Ogara knew the representation to be false, adding that he induced Ademoye, the complainant, to confer a benefit on him by delivering copies of Kogi State Vehicle Consolidated documents worth N19.1 million to him in the understanding that the documents would be paid for.

The prosecution called two witnesses through whom several documents were tendered and admitted by the court as exhibits.

The complainant testified as the first prosecution witness.

Ogara testified as the first defence witness, denying the allegations. Two other witnesses testified in his defence.

The offences, according to the prosecution, are contrary to Section 1(1)(b) and (2) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Fraud Offences Act of 2006, and Section 1(1)(b) and 2(b) of the Dishonoured Cheques (Offences) Act, 2004.

The Star