A 39-year-old locomotive driver with the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Christopher Ekene Ofielu, has gone off track, straight into crime.
The Lagos State High Court, sitting before Justice Rahman Oshodi, has sentenced him to one and a half years in prison or a ₦1.5 million fine for stealing ₦6.9 million through a digital fraud scheme.
The once-respectable train driver was accused of committing cybercrime after exploiting a payment glitch on fintech platform HabariPay Ltd in October 2023.
Using a HabariPay Squad account reportedly created for criminal activity, Ofielu transferred ₦6,995,944 into his Access Bank account, a move that quickly put him on the EFCC’s radar.
According to EFCC prosecutor Abubakar Dambuwa, the convict wasn’t acting alone. Investigators discovered he was part of a WhatsApp fraud ring that pounced on the glitch to siphon over ₦900 million from unsuspecting accounts.
An EFCC witness, Adams Adze, told the court that Ofielu first “tested the waters” with a ₦500 transaction before going all in with the multi-million naira transfer.
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Cornered by digital footprints, Ofielu confessed and pleaded guilty to the one-count charge of stealing, contrary to Sections 280 and 287 of the Lagos State Criminal Law, 2015.
His counsel, Mercy Akhabue, pleaded for mercy, calling him a first-time offender who was remorseful and had attempted to refund the stolen sum.
She added that the defendant’s bank accounts had already been frozen by Access Bank since the offence.
Justice Oshodi, however, was unmoved. He declared:
“You are sentenced to one year and six months imprisonment from today, October 20, 2025, for the offence of stealing. You shall make restitution of ₦6,995,944 to HabariPay Ltd within seven days.”
The judge also ordered Ofielu’s biometrics to be registered in the Lagos State offenders’ database and his Ecobank account restored after the restitution is completed.
With the judgment, the once-proud train driver has officially hit a dead end this time, not on the railway, but on the road to digital crime.
