Justice Mojisola Dada of the Lagos State Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja has convicted and sentenced an Islamic cleric, Ganiu Awojobi to two-year imprisonment over a N71 million oil fraud.
Justice Dada convicted Awojobi and his co-accused, Olufemi Paul Adesanya of all the four-count charge of stealing and obtaining money by false pretence brought against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
The anti-graft agency had accused the convicts of obtaining the sum of N71 million from the complainant, Oluwatoyin Akinwole.
Akinwole had told the court that, sometime in 2017, the convicts who claimed to be into crude oil business, approached her to join them in the business.
Akinwole also alleged that she paid the defendants some amounts of money for the supply of crude oil.
She further alleged that the defendants neither repaid her nor supplied the crude oil.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Adesanya Olufemi Paul and Awojobi Ganiu, sometime in 2017, at Lagos, within the Ikeja judicial Division, with intent to defraud, fraudulently obtained the sum of N33, 617.000 (Thirty-Three Million, Six Hundred and Seventeen Thousand Naira) by false pretence, property of Mrs. Oluwatoyin Akinwole, on the representation that you are into crude oil business from which representation you knew was false.”
The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge preferred against them, thereby setting the stage for their full trial.
At the end of the trial, Justice Dada held the the prosecution has been able to proved all the ingredients of the crime against the convicts through the witnesses and material evidence tendered before her.
She therefore convicted and sentenced them as charged without an option of fine.
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