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By Afric-tv24 - The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, will soon re-arraign a stockbroker and Managing Director of Falcon Securities Limited, Mr. Peter Ololo, and other banks executives involved in large scale capital market fraud.
By Afric-tv24 - The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, will soon re-arraign a stockbroker and Managing Director of Falcon Securities Limited, Mr. Peter Ololo, and other banks executives involved in large scale capital market fraud.
Ololo and the former bank executives namely Bartholomew Ebong (Union Bank), Sebastian Adigwe (Afribank), Erastus Akingbola (Intercontinental Bank), Okey Nwosu (Finbank) and Mrs. Cecilia Ibru (Oceanic Bank), were on August 14, 2009 arrested for various charges bordering on gross mismanagement and poor corporate governance.
The charges concern insider trading on bank shares, share manipulation and other forms of fraudulent conduct.
Ibru has since been freed after a plea bargain that saw her bagging a controversial six month jail sentence.
The other executives are still on trial at various courts but the trials have dragged on for years without convictions so far.
National Mirror investigation showed that the EFCC, frustrated by the slow pace of the trials, was looking for a better strategy to conclude the criminal proceedings.
The EFCC’s Head of Operations, Lagos, Mr. Iliyasu Kwaraba, attributed the delay in giving judgements in the cases to courts.
He said that court hindrance was the major problem in prosecuting fraud suspects, adding that in the Ololo case, a special committee had been constituted to pursue the matter and that the case would be concluded soon.
The stockbroker was alleged to have fraudulently obtained share purchase loans totalling of N88.3bn from five delinquent banks among other charges. Explaining the challenges in prosecuting the suspects, Kwarabal said: “We don’t have the system to fast track many of the cases.
“For example, we have traced suspects from banks and place them in courts. We have filed our charges (20) before the High Court in Lagos, up till now, no arraignment. When the cases get to courts, they are at the mercy of the judges.
“A former state’s governor is being investigated for committing fraud since 2003, but with all available evidence we have on him, he got perpetual injunction from court restraining us from trying him.
“In another case, we got judgement that the court has no jurisdiction. By the time they alleged that there was duress in taking the statement, it becomes a problem to tender. We are just wasting resources on several trials.
“There was a time we appeared in court and the court said three statements could not be taken at once, but one after the other at different dates. There are so many applications and it’s taking time. That is the problem.”
On the allegation that the commission is being influenced to soft-pedal on some of the cases, he said that he had carried out many investigations for the past eight years and nobody had stopped him from going ahead.
Kwaraba however, accused banks of complicating fraud cases, saying that banks sometimes hide relevant information from the commission.
“Sometimes when you go to the banks, they don’t give out relevant information. Worse still, two or three years after, the necessary staff might have left the banks,” he added.
Kwarabal, who said that the commission received 166 cases in June and recovered N1.6bn from fraudsters, explained that there were lots of activities being undertaken by the commission.
“When we are doing high profile cases, mere seeing the invitation letter from the commission, they will go to court, use the proceeds of the crime to hire Senior Advocates of Nigeria. We have all available evidence against the governor, but he got perpetual injunction.”
Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Ms. Aruma Oteh, while speaking on the latest developments concerning the case of alleged fraud committed by Ololo and others in the capital market, said the case was still in court and it was left for the judges to decide.
The Deputy Inspector- General of Police, Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo, also said that the police had herculean task in discharging their responsibilities despite the effort of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to reduce corruption in the banking industry.
He, however, accused banks of failing to always report fraud cases to the police, saying that due to perceived negative publicity and slow and tortuous legal process, banks do not report many cases.
Akpoyibo noted that at every hour, there was an attempt to defraud a bank in the country.
National Mirror learnt that governors being investigated by the EFCC include the former Enugu State Governor, Mr. Chimaroke Nnamani over suspicious $5.3m wire transfer into the account of Facegood Oil and Gas Company.
