Court jails NDDC staff seven years for N4m contract fraud

•EFCC Nabs Wanted Fraud Suspect, Five Others In Ilorin
Justice A.T Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, yesterday, sentenced one Tarila Ebizimor to seven years imprisonment for obtaining money under false pretext to the tune of N4million.

The convict, a supervisor in the Security Department of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), was arraigned by the Port Harcourt Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a four-count charge.

Ebizimor was alleged to have sometime in August 2013 paraded himself as personal assistant of the managing director of the NDDC and obtained the sum of N4million from the petitioner on the pretext that he would facilitate the award of road construction contract to him.

One of the charges against him reads: “That you, Tarila Ebizimor, on August 13, 2013, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, within the jurisdiction of this court, did fraudulently obtain the sum of N2, 000,000, which said sum was paid into your Fidelity Bank account No. 5330259983 by a means of transfer from God’s Grace Haulage Limited on the pretext that you were to facilitate the award of road construction contract from NDDC, a pretext you know to be false and thereby committed an offence, contrary to Section 1(i)(a) of Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

Meanwhile, the Ilorin Zonal Office of the EFCC, in the early hours of Thursday, January 16, close to Kwara State House of Assembly, has arrested six suspected Internet fraudsters, including 22-year-old Sadiku Muniru Dolapo, who has been on the Commission’s wanted list, following intelligence.

Also arrested were Atanda Femi Benjamin, Atoyebi Samson, Olapade Oladimeji Solomon, Amoo Saheed and Lawal Opeyemi Mubarak.

Items recovered from them include three expensive automobiles, laptop computers and mobile phones.

According to the EFCC, the suspect would soon be charged to court.