Admin l Thursday, October 03, 2019
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Justice Mojisola Dada of a Lagos High Court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced Awojobi Ganiu, who claimed to be an Islamic cleric for N71 million fraud. He was sentenced to two years jail term.
Awojobi Ganiyu was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) alongside his co-defendant, Adesanya Olufemi Paul, on Tuesday, December 11, 2018, on a four-count charge of stealing and obtaining money by false pretence to the tune of N71, 000,000.00 from one Mrs. Oluwatoyin Akinwole.
Akinwole alleged that, sometime in 2017, the defendants 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 amount of money for the supply of crude oil but that the defendants neither repaid her nor supplied the crude oil.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Adesanya Olufemi 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 charges preferred against them, thereby setting the stage for their full trial.
In the course of the trial, the prosecution counsel, Samuel Daji, called five witnesses and tendered several documents that were admitted in evidence by the court.
The first defendant, Paul, testified for himself, while the second defendant, Ganiu, approached the Commission for a plea bargain through a letter dated March 11, 2019. Consequently, the charge relating to the second defendant, Ganiu, was amended and subsequently convicted on terms agreed by the accused and the prosecutor.
