EFCC Nails Two Oil Marketers with 8 Years Imprisonment

 

Segun Atanda/

Two oil marketers have bagged eight years in prison over N789.6million oil fraud.

Justice Latifat Okunnu of the State High Court in Ikeja, Lagos, today convicted and sentenced George Ogbonna and Emmanuel Morah, owners of Rocky Energy Limited, to eight years imprisonment on a 26-count amended charge bordering on conspiracy, obtaining by false pretense and forgery to the tune of N789.6million preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The convicts were prosecuted alongside one Adamu Maula, owner of Downstream Energy Sources Limited.

The convicts allegedly imported 10, 862 metric tonnes of Premium Motor Spirit, (PMS), for which they were paid by the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF).

According to EFCC’s spokesman, Samin Amaddin, investigations later revealed that the documents used were forged.

Counsels to the defendants, in separate no-case submissions, had urged the Court to dismiss the charge against their clients for lack of merit.

The prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, however presented 11 witnesses, including Abdulrasheed Bawa, an investigator with the EFCC, and tendered documents in evidence.

In his judgment on January 26, Justice Okunnu sentenced the defendants to eight years imprisonment each.

The judge also ordered the convicts to return the money they fraudulently collected to the Federal Government.

Maula and his company, Downstream Energy Sources Limited, were, however, discharged and acquitted by the court.

In his reaction to the judgment, Jacobs thanked the court for allowing justice to prevail during course of the trial.

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