Emmanuel Thomas l Monday, August 07, 2017
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Seven staff of Dangote Sugar Refinery were today arraigned before an Ikeja High Court for defrauding their company to the tune of N450 million.
The affected staff are Musa Sule, Joseph Ukpah, Babatunde Ajao, Chinedu Onyekwere, Ezekiel Omoro, Rahman Alayande and Odion Abugba. They were arraigned along with a businessman, Habib Mande along with his company El-Habib Property Nigeria Ltd. Two others, Zainab Adebanjo and Manir Mohammed are currently at large.
They were arraigned on eight-count charge of conspiracy, stealing, forgery and altering of false documents. They, however, denied all the charges. According to state prosecutor, Mr E.A Jackson, the defendants committed the offence between 2012 and 2016 at Dangote Sugar Refinery, Apapa, Lagos.
“Mande, a businessman who previously had dealings with the company conspired with the other defendants and stole N451million, property of Dangote Sugar Refinery. On Nov. 30, 2015, Sep. 7, 2015 and April 26, 2016 they forged and altered false cheque requisition forms with numbers 132243, 132229 and 132279 respectively.
“Their intent was that these documents may be used or acted on by officers of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc to the prejudice of the company,” he said. The company had in a petition to the police narrated how the theft was discovered during a routine audit.
The audit revealed that N67.9m was allegedly transferred from the company’s account into the account of El-Habib Property Nigeria Limited.
According to the prosecution, the offences violated Sections 390 (9), 465, 467, 468 and 516 of the Criminal Code, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. The vacation judge, Justice Sedotan Ogunsanya noted that the defendants were still on police bail granted by the SFU.
She adjourned the case until Sept. 22 for argument on their bail application.
