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EFCC re-arraigns oil firm Directors over £2.6bn fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Wednesday re-arraigned four Directors of an oil firm, Petro Union Oil and Gas Limited, before Justice Mohammed Liman of a Federal High Court in Lagos on a 13-count charge of alleged £2.6 billion fraud.
The four Directors, Abayomi Kukoyi (Trading under the name and style of Gladstone Kukoyi & Associates), Prince Kingsley Okpala, Prince Chidi Okpalaeze and Prince Emmanuel Okpalaeze, were earlier on February 13, 2020, arraigned by the anti-graft agency on a seven-count charge bordering on the alleged offence.
The defendants’ trial subsequently resumed after they all pleaded not guilty to the amended charge. Two witnesses were called by the EFCC on Wednesday to prove its case against the defendants.
Testifying in the matter, a former Minister of Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, narrated how one, Isaac Okpala, wrote her ministry seeking for a mandate for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay £2.6 billion to the firm.
According to her, such a request was strange to the Ministry of Finance because the extant law which would have made issuing such a mandate to the CBN mandatory has been repealed.
She added there was even no need for the Ministry of Finance to issue any mandate to the CBN because the money in question is not public money.

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