EFCC boss testifies in N1.4bn oil subsidy fraud trial

The chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, on Wednesday appeared before a Lagos State High Court, Ikeja, to give evidence in a N1.4 billion fraud trial involving an oil company, Nadabo Energy Ltd.

Led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Seidu Atteh, Mr Bawa said he analysed the email correspondences of the defendants and found out that contrary to their claim, they took about six million litres of petrol from a mother vessel to their chartered vessel.

“The email further confirmed that the same quantity was discharged at Port-Harcourt. In addition, the email also informed us that one Mr Jide Akpan was the agent of the vessel,” Mr Bawa said, in the case which he, as an EFCC investigator, was a prosecution witness before his appointment as the chairman of the anti-graft agency.

“We invited the said Akpan and during the course of our interrogation with him he confirmed that the first defendant through the second defendant deferred the vessel and paid for it.”

The EFCC had accused Abubakar Ali Peters and his company, Nadabo Energy, of allegedly using forged documents to obtain N1.4 billion from the federal government as oil subsidy after allegedly inflating the quantity of premium motor spirit, PMS purportedly supplied to 14,000M.

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The defendants had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In his previous testimony, Mr Bawa told the court that based on investigation carried out on the defendant’s dealings with Staco Insurance Company, “the Certificate of marine insurance used by the defendant for the transaction in question was forged.”

Mr Bawa is currently giving evidence in the trial as of the time of filing this report.

Details later…