Kaduna Court Convicts NNPC Employee For N1.8m Fraud

A High Court sitting in Kaduna State has convicted and sentenced one Nuhu Aliyu for N1.8 million fraud.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had disclosed this in a statement signed by its Head, Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, on Thursday.

Aliyu was prosecuted by the commission on an amended one-count charge of criminal breach of trust and abuse of office, to which he pleaded guilty.

The statement read in part: “Aliyu, a staff of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC)/ Nigerian Pipeline and Storage Company Ltd (NPSC) and Chairman, PENGASSAN PPMC Kaduna Depot Branch, defrauded the NNPC to the tune of N1,834,900.00 in October 2017.

“The convict pulled off the fraud by summoning an emergency meeting of a few NUPENG executives, and deliberately left out some others with the sole aim of having the liberty to process some payments to himself.

“Though the meeting did not hold, he went ahead to facilitate the payments to himself by splitting the payments into two. One to himself, to the tune of N934, and the other to Muktar Aliyu, NUPENG’s secretary in the state, to the tune of N900,000.00

“Muktar Aliyu, however, routed back the sum to Nuhu Aliyu, thereby making the chairman the sole beneficiary of an illicit payment of N1,834,900.00.

“It was further discovered that to facilitate the payments, the convict forged the signatures of some other NUPENG officials with the help of one Ibrahim Yakubu Shekarau.

Following his plea, the prosecution counsel, Y.J.Matiyak, tendered 11 documents that were admitted as exhibits and urged the court to convict and sentence him accordingly.

Presiding over the case, Justice Khobo convicted and sentenced the suspect, ordering him to pay the sum of N100,000 to the federal government or risk a 10 years jail term.

Justice Khobo further pronounced that the EFCC should recover the proceeds of the crime from the convict and transfer it in favour of the PPMC.