Justice Mojisola Dada of the Lagos State Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja has convicted and sentenced an engineer, Kayode Adegbaju, and his company, Warewater Limited, to three years imprisonment for offences bordering on stealing, conspiracy to commit a felony, and issuance of dud cheques.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arraigned the convicts on a five-count charge bordering on the offences to the tune of N61,160,000.
In the course of the trial the counsel for the EFCC, Mrs. Fadeke Giwa, called one witness, an operative of the EFCC who was involved in the investigation of the alleged fraud, following a petition by the victim of the fraud, one Alhaji Usman Abiodun (now late), the alter ego of Harafat Integrated Service Limited, who accused the defendants of defrauding him of the said sum.
Several documentary evidence was also presented by the prosecution against the defendants and they were all admitted as exhibits. The death certificate of his victim, who died in May 2018 at the age of 50, was also admitted in evidence.
Investigation showed that the defendant had approached his late victim to finance a construction project, awarded to him by a company. The victim provided him with the sum of N89,160,000.
However, following the execution of the said project awarded to the defendant for which the company confirmed paying him fully, the defendant only paid back N28 million to his victim, leaving the balance of the sum of N61,160,000.
Instead of clearing the balance, he issued three cheques in the name of his company, in the sum of N10 million each, which were returned unpaid for insufficient funds when presented at the bank by his victim, prompting the victim to petition the EFCC.
The defendant, led in evidence by his counsel, M Mofunaya, took to the dock to defend himself, denying all the allegations.
He had further claimed that the said dud cheques were signed under duress.
Delivering judgment, Justice Dada held that the prosecution proved all the counts against the defendant.
The trial judge further noted that the defendant, who opened several bank accounts in the name of his company, “had a sinister motive”, and merely used the company as “a vehicle of fraud”; further noting that his victim “was sent to his early grave”.
Justice Dada, thus found him and his company guilty on all counts and sentenced him to two years on count one bordering on stealing, three years on count two bordering on conspiracy, and two years each on counts three to five bordering on the issuance of dud cheques. All the counts are to run concurrently.
The company was fined N500,000 on count one, and N500,000 each on counts three to five. He was also ordered to pay the outstanding amount of N61,160,000 within three months of the judgment to the victim or his estate.
