Court Convicts One Over N13m Pension Fraud

Matilda Omonaiye/

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Enugu Zonal office, today secured the conviction of a pension fraudster before Justice K.I Okpe of the State High Court, Enugu.

Akpudili Christian Anayo was convicted on a six-count charge bordering on forgery, impersonation, conspiracy and stealing to the tune of N13, 000, 000.

The convict pleaded guilty of the charges preferred against him when he was arraigned today.

After reviewing the charges against him, Justice Okpe found him guilty of all the charges. The Court convicted him and adjourned till May 13, 2019 for his sentencing.

Anayo’s ordeal started when the complainant, Enugu State government, alleged that on May 3, 2017, the Enugu State EXCO had directed that May, June and July 2017 pensions /salaries of the state pensioners and three other agencies of the state government be paid by cheques after physical verification.

At the end of the verification exercise, it was revealed that the convict who was an Ad-hoc staff for the verification exercise, in charge of the system computing the names of the verified civil servants in the state, conspired and used the bank accounts of three fake pensioners: Ngene Patrick Somtochukwu, Ani Ifeyinwa and Patience Christian Chimezie, domiciled in Fidelity, Stanbic IBTC and First Banks plc respectively to diverts funds meant for the pension and salaries of the civil servants in the 17 local government area of Enugu State.

One of the counts reads that “Akpudili Christian Anayo sometime in June 2017, at Enugu State within the jurisdiction of the High Court of Enugu State stole the sum of (N5,034,435) Five Million Thirty Four Thousand, Four Hundred And Thirty Five Naira only, through  Christian Chimezie Patience, Fidelity bank account number 6171072108, property of the Enugu State government pension Board and you thereby committed an offence stealing contrary to Section 342 of the Criminal Code Law of the Enugu State, Cap.30, Revised Laws of Enugu State, 2004 and punishable under Section 353 of the same Law”.