The Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja has sentenced cashier, Tunde Abdulramon, to five years’ imprisonment for his employer’s N64,420,900 to marry a new wife and also for opening the same kind of his employer’s business for his new wife.

Justice Raliat Adebiyi who handed down the sentence also ordered the convict to make restitution by returning all the properties he bought while in his employer’s establishment and also the money that he stole.

The convict was arraigned on August 19, 2013, on 11 counts which bordered on stealing and fraudulent false accounting, preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The offences committed contravened Sections 390 and 335 (d) of the criminal laws of Lagos State 2003.

Abdulramon’s duty as the cashier of Prime Grocers International Limited, a company selling wholesale and retail consumer goods located in the Oke Arin area of Lagos State, was to collect payments for invoices raised by sales representatives from customers, document them in his cash register and then lodge monies collected into the company’s designated bank account.

The convict, instead, was accused of deleting the invoices and diverting large sums of money paid by customers and lodgers until the company’s managing director discovered the fraud in 2012 after an audit of the computer software was collected following a tip-off that the convict had been deleting invoices.

Abdulramon committed the offences between January 2009 and 2012, when he was discovered to be defrauding his employer.

During the trial, the prosecution called six witnesses, including the complainant, Constance Obi, who told the court that she met the convict in 2002 when the company started importing goods for distribution.

She told Justice Adebiyi that Abdulramon was one of the casual labourers who discharged goods from the container, but that in 2004, he approached her for assistance and then he was permanently employed at the company.

The witness testified that the convict’s duty in 2004 included picking and packing goods for customers before he was promoted to a cashier.

Obi further testified that she received an anonymous call in November 2012, telling her to check the cashier in her store, Tunde Abdulrahmon, as he is a criminal because of some properties that he recently acquired, vehicles, and a new wife.

She also told the court that three days after she received the call, the convict came to her office to tender a resignation letter, which she refused to collect.

The complainant stated that it was thereafter that she checked the computer’s audit trail that filtered the convict’s identification and printed out a report that showed that he had been deleting invoices.

But the convict in his defence denied the allegations against him.

Delivering her judgment, Justice Adebiyi found the convict guilty.

She held that the evidence was that the complainant was unshaken and the prosecution was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the convict altered the company’s record.

The judge held that the convict was the mastermind in the deleting of all the invoices and diverting payments made by customers to both his personal and business accounts.

“Abdulramon took advantage of the level of the trust reposed by the chief executive officer of the company (complainant), the offence was also committed continuously and repeatedly for over a period of four years.

“The court finds the level of culpability of the convict to be high; as regards the harm caused, the court finds that the acts of the convict ought to have caused a degree of significant economic loss to his employer although the employer appeared not to have realised this for four years.

“The amount stolen was of significant value and the convict was also involved in conducting a similar kind of business to that of his employer, whilst still in employment therefore creating a conflict of interest,” the judge held.

“Tunde Abdulramon is hereby sentenced on counts one to nine, to two and half years and counts 10 and 11 two and half years, to run concurrently,

“The court hereby orders the disposal of properties acquired by the convict that was acquired with proceeds of the offence and payment of proceeds to the complainant,” Justice Adebiyi held.

The Edo State Police Command said it arrested the husband of a woman who allegedly committed suicide in Benin in the “Mummy Calm Down” viral video because of some issues that surrounded the alleged suicide.

The victim, Mrs Toluige Olokoobi Babalola, a mother of three, was alleged to have committed suicide by hanging herself with a rope in their apartment in Garick Layout, Ekhuan, Benin City, on November 8.

Speaking with City & Crime, the command’s spokesperson, Chidi Nwabuzor, said the suicide case was reported at the Evbuotubu Police Station on November 8, by the deceased’s husband, Lawal, that on returning from the market he met his son, Ifeo, crying and that he burst the door open and met his wife on a rope tied to the ceiling.

He further said, “The husband said himself and some neighbours rushed her to the hospital where she was confirmed dead.

“The DPO and the man went to the house and recovered the rope and alleged suicide note written by the deceased wife.

“The DPO moved the suspect to the hospital to check the body of the deceased to see if there was any mark of violence, and with due diligence, there was no mark of violence on her body.

“But there are issues surrounding the alleged suicide. The husband claims that the neighbours came upon his outcry and helped him to bring down the woman from the rope.

“But the neighbours said, ‘No, we didn’t know anything about losing the woman from the rope. When we came we met you lying on her crying’.”

He said based on the report from the DPO that there was no mark of violence on the deceased body, the Commissioner of Police (CP), Muhammed Dankwara, ordered an investigation into the matter.

The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has taken over the assets of Stallion Nigeria Limited and its subsidiaries in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Kano.

The bank’s action followed an order of the Federal High Court in Lagos over an alleged N156,026,032,804.84 debt.

Last Friday, the bank’s receiver-manager, Romeo Michael, and court bailiffs, under police protection in the three cities, executed the interim orders delivered by Justice Akintayo Aluko on October 20.

The judge made the order after hearing Temilolu Adamolekun, who appeared with Mohammed Usman, moving the motion ex parte as counsel for the plaintiff/applicants in the suit.

The order subsists pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.

The case was adjourned till November 20 for hearing of the Motion on Notice.

The order also affects the defendants’ funds totalling N156 billion in commercial, microfinance and other financial institutions across the country.

The first to fourth plaintiffs/applicants in the suit are: UBA Plc, UBA Cameroon SA, Cote D’Ivoire SA, and Romeo Ese Michael.

The first to 11th defendants/respondents are: Stallion Nigeria Limited (in receivership), Von Automobile Nigeria Limited, Popular Farms and Mills Limited, Havana Nigeria Limited.

The other defendants are: KRBL Food Industries Limited, Qingqi Motorcycle Manufacturing Limited, Stallion Auto Keke Limited, Stallion Motors Limited, The Honda Place Limited, Yokohama Construction Limited, and Mr. Sunil Vaswani.

In granting UBA’s prayers, Justice Aluko also restrained the defendants, their directors, shareholders, employees, officers, and agents, from interfering with or frustrating the receiver/manager from exercising all the powers vested in him or performing his duties as receiver of the mortgaged properties, among others.

According to the affidavit deposed to on October 18 by Mr. Anthony Chilaka, Group Head, Recovery and Remedial Management Department of the first to third plaintiffs’ companies, UBA, in 2014, gave various credit facilities to the first defendant (Stallion Nigeria Limited).

Both parties agreed that the credit facilities could be used and were used by Stallion’s sister companies, that is, the second to 10th defendants, in accordance with the offer letter.

As security for the various loans, the defendants mortgaged their aforementioned assets in Port Harcourt, Lagos, and Kano.

Sometime in 2014, Stallion Motors (eighth defendant) was awarded a contract by the Federal Government to supply 700 Ashok Leyland trucks/Stallion troop carrying vehicles and 50 Falcon-seater buses to be used by the military with the understanding of the parties that the receivables from the Federal Government would be paid into Stallion Account with UBA.

But after delivering the vehicles to the Federal Government, Stallion Motors allegedly directed the government to make the initial payment of $50 million into its Dubai account and also received another N8.2 billion into its offshore account, rather than to its UBA account, as agreed.

UBA alleged that the defendants failed to clear their debts totalling N156 billion.

[Nation]

President of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), Matthew Ashimolowo has urged the Federal Government to create short, medium and long term measures to address the chronic poverty in Nigeria.

He advised the Federal Government to adopt ‘Keynesian economics’ to boost production

The clergyman lamented that Nigerian business owners are constantly harassed by federal and state revenue collection agencies.

He urged the government to support business owners instead of empowering few rich men who cannot employ more than 100,000 people.

Ashimolowo shared his view during an interview with newsmen at the end of a six-day long Christ Compassion Crusade 2023 at the Igbogbo Stadium in Ikorodu, Lagos.

Speaking on palliatives, he argued that it is not the answer to the situation in the economy.

Ashimolowo said, “In the short-term, government should apply ‘Keynesian economics’, which argues that government should encourage industries to overproduce and then buy the excess, that way, there will be production, when government buys off the excesses and gives to the poor.

“In the medium term, the government should take away the power of over-empowering few very rich men that we keep celebrating as multi-billionaires meanwhile they cannot employ more than 100,000 people. Government should rather encourage small and medium enterprises, Nigerians are very entrepreneurial by nature, there is no house that does not have a shop in front of it, government calls them a setback but it is not a setback, those small shops should be empowered.

“In the long term, the government must encourage industries to come up. They say it is easy to do business in Nigeria, it is a lie, I have businesses in Nigeria, it is not easy to do business, if you are doing business in Nigeria, you are harassed by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the local inland revenue service.

“Palliative is not the answer, I think palliative is short term, we don’t call our own palliative. The dictionary definition of palliative is something you give a man that is sick as temporary reprieve. Ours is not that, ours is to bless, we are here to touch people and show them compassion, we are not government.”