Court Remands Businessman In EFCC Custody Over N14.5 million Fraud
A federal High court sitting in Asaba, Delta State capital Tuesday remanded one Mr. Kingsley Akachukwu, a Nigerian USA-based businessman in the custody of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly defrauding one Pastor Udoka Nebonta and four others about N14.5 million.
Mr. Akachukwu is presently facing a 17-count charge for allegedly receiving the said money from the complainants to buy Honda CRV vehicles, Auto parts, medical kits and other valuable items from United States of America (USA) and Japan but allegedly failed to do so.
At the resumed hearing, the accused person however, pleaded not guilty to the charges read in part: “that you Kingsley Akachukwu about the 10th day of October 2012 in Asaba within the jurisdiction of the federal High Court of Nigeria with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of N5 million under the pretence that you can buy him SUV Car which you know is false, an offence contrary to section 1(a) of advance fee fraud and other fraud related offence Act 2006 and punishable under section 1(3) of the same Act”.
Counsel to the accused person, Mr. O.K Okele however pleaded with the court to grant his client bail, but this was swiftly objected to by the EFCC counsel, Mr. I.I Mbachie on the ground that the accused person would jump bail.
While the accused person’s counsel insisted that Kingsley Akachukwu was going to jump bail having been granted bail before now by a High Court in Abuja, the EFCC counsel told the court that it took almost a year to arrest the accused person in Lagos, and when he was arrested and granted bail, “we could not see him to face trial on time”.
The Federal High Court judge, Justice A.O Faji who was not convinced by the bail application canvased for and opposed to asked both counsels to support their argument with enough evidences from the bail to enable him know whether or not to grant the accused person bail. But the two counsels were helpless as they failed to base their motion on the point of law from any law books.
The EFCC counsel, Mr. Mbachie who said that he lost his law book and diary, however blamed his secretary for his shortcomings, however, this blame shift infuriated the judge, he thus warned the EFCC counsel to be fully ready for any case filed in court rather than shifting blames, saying his failure to speak on point of law is enough to sack him.
Justice Faji thereafter remanded the accused person in the custody of EFCC and adjourned the case till February 16, 2016.