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From Godwin Tsa, Abuja.
The Abuja division of the Federal High Court on Tuesday admitted the judgment that convicted and jailed former chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, as an exhibit against former head of service of the federation, Chief Stephen Oronsaye, in a N2 billion corruption trial.
Justice Inyang Ekwo accepted the judgment tendered in evidence by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
At the resumed trial on Tuesday, the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Oluwaleke Atolagbe, tendered the judgment through Ms Rukayat Ibrahim, the prosecution’s 20th witness. Ibrahim, an operative of the EFCC who had been giving her testimony in the trial in the last one year, told the court that the commission had succeded in convicting Maina and sentencing him to six years in prison for N2.7 billion pension fraud.
She said the money was in the pension fund and investigation revealed that the money was approved by Oronsaye.
Ibrahim added that Maina opened five fictitious accounts in a commercial bank and used them to siphon the money from the pension fund for his personal use.
“The accounts were opened without carrying out ‘know your customer,’ they were operated through SMS and emails and our investigations showed that, although they had fictitious names, they were operated by Maina even though his name and picture did not appear on any of the accounts.
“We were able to link them to him through his signature on his extrajudicial statement, the phone number used to receive alerts and some payments from those accounts were traced to his real account.”
The witness also said that investigation revealed that, on July 15, 2010, over N101 million was transferred to Oronsaye’s account.
According to her, when the commission asked for an clarification, Oronsaye gave an unclear explanation and brought a letter from the Presidency that the money was sent to the Presidency.
She further told the court that the letter did not represent virement of the money.
Justice Ekwo, adjourned the matter till February 3 for cross-examination of the witness.
Oronsaye is being tried, alongside others for allegedly using inflated biometrics enrollment contracts, allowances and other schemes to siphon money from accounts in which pensioners’ funds were kept.
