Court adjourns Ogah’s trial to October 10

A Lagos Magistrate Court, Tinubu, has adjourned the criminal trial of the President of Master Energy Oil and Gas Limited and Abia State governorship aspirant under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Uche Ogah and others to October 10.

Ogah, Deji Somoye and two firms, Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited and United Bank for Africa (UBA), were arraigned by the Police on June 16, 2016 over alleged fraud.
No reason was given for the absence of Chief Magistrate, Kike Ayeye, but the court registrars adjourned the matter to the new date.

The police in charge No. A/62/2016, said Ogah allegedly forged a Memorandum of Understanding between Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited and Mut-Hass Petroleum Limited sometime in March 2011.

The suspects and others still at large, were alleged to have forged the signature of one Mrs. Bridget Adeosun. The police also alleged that the bank aided Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited to open an account in the name of Mut-Hass Petroleum, to perpetrate the fraud without applying its internal control procedures in the opening of the account.

The police had claimed that UBA allowed the said account to be opened sometime in 2011 at its regional office in Palmgrove, Lagos, in breach of the provisions of the Financial Institutions Act 2004.

Police prosecutor, ASP Henry Obiazi had told the court that the offences contravened sections 363 (3)(u), 408 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. The charges read in part: “That you, Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited, Uche Ogah, and others at large sometime in March 2011 at Ikeja, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did conspire among yourselves to wit: forgery.

“That you, Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited, Uche Ogah, and others at large, on the same date, time, place and in the aforementioned magisterial district, did forge the signature of one Mrs. Bridget Adeosun and a document known as MoU between Mut-Hass Petroleum Limited and Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited, with an intent that it may be in any way used or acted upon as genuine.”The defendants, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges and were admitted to bail in the sum of N200,000 each with one surety each in like sum.