Police authorities have commenced the criminal trial against a former governor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

In the charge marked CR/993/2020 and dated September 23, 2020, the office of the Inspector-General of Police accused Ohakim of fraud and false information.

The former Governor was equally accused of using the name of the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians.

In addition, the prosecution alleged that Ohakim claimed in his statement to the police that he gave Lady Chinyere Lilian Amuchienwa the sum of N100 million for his governorship in 2019, which he could not prove in the statement.

The Police said the former Governor will soon be arraigned in court.

The three-count charge against Ohakim, signed by Mr Stanley Nwodo read:

‘That you Ikedi Ohakim, on or about the 23rd day of May 2019 at Asokoro, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did unlawfully gave false information against one Chinyere Amuchienwa, that she threatened you with gun knowing it to be false and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 140 of the Penal Code Law of the Northern Nigeria, 1968.

”That you Ikedi Ohakim, on or about the 23rd day of May 2019, at Asokoro, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did unlawfully gave false information against one Chinyere Amuchienwa, that you have a plot of land for sale at Lagos state, knowing it to be false and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 140 of the Penal Code Law of the Northern Nigeria, 1968.

‘That you Ikedi Ohakim on or about the 23rd day of May 2019 at Asokoro, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did unlawfully used derogatory the name of Raji Fashola as the owner of the purported land situated at Ikeja, Lagos state and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 140 of the Penal Code Law of the Northern Nigeria, 1968.’

In a related development, an Upper Area Court sitting in Mpape, Abuja, has sentenced one Kingsley Ogam, who is said to be working for the former Governor to eight months in prison with an option of N30,000 fine.

In the charge marked CR/496/2020, Ogam was sentenced to prison on September 24, 2020.

According to the First Information Report (FIR), Ogam was arraigned before the court for defamation of character, injurious falsehood and criminal intimidation.

The prosecution said the offence is punishable under Section 392, 393 and 397 of the Penal Code Law.

Ogam was said to have defamed the character of Lady Chinyere Lilian Amuchienwa.

He was sentenced to prison by Mohammad Maraca after he pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

The court also ordered him to write an apology letter to Amuchienwa.

The judge instructed that Kingsley Ogam should tender an apology to lady Amuchienwa of which she rejected

Also, a certain Chinedu Opereke was arrested alongside Kingsley Ogam and was remanded in Suleja prison by the court.

The former Governor was also supposed to be arraigned before the Upper Area Court for conspiracy.

He was invited on September 10 by the police in relation to a petition against him by Lady Amuchienwa, over alleged defamation of character, injurious falsehood and criminal intimidation.

But rather than honouring his invitation, Ohakim rushed to a high court in Imo State for the enforcement of his fundamental human rights.

In the application filed at the High Court of Justice of Imo state, with suit number HON/717/2020, he asked for an order of the court stopping the police from inviting, arresting and detaining him.

After listening to the motion, Justice VI Onyeka granted the order

However, a thorough look at the document shows that the motion was filed on September 10, 2020, assigned same day and the order granted the same day.

An Ikeja Special Offences Court, Lagos heard how seven men allegedly hacked and withdrew the sum of N900 million from First City Monument Bank (FCMB), belonging to several of its customers.

The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) witness, an employee of FCMB, Olayinka Olaleye, while being led in evidence by the EFCC Lawyer, Benedict Chima Benneth, narrated to the court how the seven accused men allegedly committed the offences sometime in March 2018, in Lagos.

“We received a call from one of our customers, Eko Hotel, reporting an unauthorised debit of N300, 000 from their account.”

“We immediately went into our system and discovered that, the sum of N900 million had been withdrawn from various customers’ accounts. It was also discovered that these suspects’ accounts, received huge sums of money.”

“When we investigated further, we discovered that these suspects viewed the accounts of top customers like MTN, Multichoice, one account of Rivers State Government and Eko Hotel.”

“They gained unauthorised access into the system of FCMB, they conspired together and deleted information, and hacked into the password of some users in the bank to increase transaction limits on the corporate accounts, increase the transaction amount, and they increased the transaction frequencies and linked their ATM cards into these corporate accounts I earlier mentioned, thereby effecting online transfers from those corporate accounts into their own accounts.”

However, during cross-examination by the 1st and 2nd defence counsel, Lekan Egbereoungbe, when asked how the suspects gained unauthorised access, the bank staff who has been working with bank for six years said: “The bank has its application called FINACLE. It is hosted centrally upon which any person that wants to access it, is given a right in relation to his duty. Rights differ from person to person. There is what we call penetration; there is a way that our ‘SO Called Software’, can be penetrated”.

Meanwhile, the Commission alleged that the seven Defendants did steal by authorised transfers and withdrawals from various FCMB points nationwide, the sum of N900 million, property of the owners of and various customers of FCMB, from their account to various accounts outside the bank via POS and ATM.

Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo adjourned the matter to the 21st October, 2020, for continuation of trial.

The federal government has signed a Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) with the USA, India, Morocco as well as Rwanda.

Hadi Sirika, minister of aviation in his twitter handle @hadisirika stated, “I am glad to announce that Mr President, on behalf of Nigeria, has signed the instruments of ratification of the bilateral air service agreement between Nigeria and USA, India, Morocco as well as Rwanda.”

This development is coming after experts have also called on the federal government to review the country’s BASAs.

BASA, founded on the principle of reciprocity, is a deal that enables a country’s airlines to enjoy equal leverage, in terms of flight operations, in countries with which their home country has an air agreement.

John Ojikutu, member of the aviation industry think tank group, Aviation Round Table (ART) and chief executive of Centurion Securities, told BusinessDay not TheNigerialawyer that the concerned authorities need to first identify the places where private airlines or private aircraft can be accommodated in the existing BASAs between Nigeria and these countries.

“We had a similar problem with Arik operations to the UK some years ago and there were some ‘diplomatic’ moves that restored the airline operated from Gatwick to Heathrow. The question I asked then was; what would happen if tomorrow you get a national carrier flying; would the national carrier be flying to Gatwick or to Heathrow?

“Some of these interventions in private operations and international operations are not well thought out government decisions but unilateral exploitations of the systems by some individuals in official capacities. My take is, if we don’t have a national carrier, let there be flag carriers as all American Airlines are but there must be policies and regulations to become one.

“That is why I said nationally, we must have policies that classify our airlines as regional flag carriers, continental flag carriers or intercontinental flag carriers. If Air Peace is being refused flights to UK now but BA is still allowed to fly into Nigeria, we must revisit the agreement that allowed Air Peace into UK pre covid19 within or without the BASA between the two countries if it is not a unilateral arrangement outside the BASA,” Ojikutu explained.

He also asked on whose interests the multiple frequencies and destinations are given to foreign airlines like BA, Ethiopian airline, Emirates, Qatar, etc?

Olumide Ohunayo told BusinessDay that it is time Nigeria begins to take its BASA seriously and look for reciprocity because what other countries have done now is to see how they can take advantage of BASA through their own carriers.

“Once they stop you, they provide their own carriers that will do it. We need to use this period to learn our lessons, straighten our BASA agreements and on no basis should we allow our flag carriers to go unprotected and unassisted. You don’t have to own the carrier to give it support,” Ohunayo said.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says Lagos State recorded the highest Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of N204.51 billion in the first half of 2020.

The NBS made this known in its Internally Generated Revenue at State Level (H1 2020) report made available on its website on Tuesday.

It said the second state with the next highest IGR was Rivers with N64.59 billion, while Jigawa recorded the least IGR with N3 billion.

Meanwhile, the IGR figure of the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was N612.87 billion in the period under review compared to N693.91 billion recorded in 2019.

The figures indicated a negative growth of -11.7 per cent year on year.

Similarly, the IGR figures of states and the FCT in the second quarter of 2020 was put at N259.73 billion compared to N353.14 billion recorded in the first quarter of 2020.

The figures also represented a negative growth of -26.5 per cent quarter on quarter.

The NBS said that it computed states IGR data in collaboration with the Joint Tax Board from official records and submissions by the 36 State Boards of Internal Revenue.

“These submissions are then validated and authenticated by the Joint Tax Board which is chaired by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and has the NBS and the 36 State Boards of Internal Revenue as members.” (NAN)

Founder of Sotitobire Praising Chapel, Prophet Babatunde Alfa and five others have been sentenced to life imprisonment for last year’s disappearance of a one-year -old child, Gold Kolawole from the church.

They were found guilty on the two- count charges bordering on kidnapping, aiding and abetting to kidnap preferred against them.

Justice Olusegun Odusola said the prosecution proved circumstantial evidence against the accused persons.

Other defendants jailed include Omodara Olayinka, Margaret Oyebola ,Grace Ogunjobi, Egunjobi Motunrayo and Esther Kayode.

Gold was taken to the church by his parents and went missing from the church.

He has not been seen since then. (The Nation)