Obono-Obla arraigned in Jos court for forgery [update]
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The sacked Special Assistant to President on Prosecution and Chairman of the Special Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property, Chief Okoi Obono-Obla has, on Monday, been arraigned in a court sitting in Jos, Plateau State, for forgery.
News.band had last year reported that Chief Obono-Obla was accused of forging the West Africa Examination Council [WAEC] documents with which he enrolled in the University of Jos.
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This medium reported on July 13, 2018, that the Director-General of Nigerian Law School, Abuja, Prof. Isa-Hayatu Chiroma had said that the WAEC result of Obono-Obla is not with the citadel of learning.
Prof. Chiroma said this before the House of Representatives ad hoc panel investigating Obono-Obla’s education qualifications.
Chiroma said that the school has no record of Okoi Obono-Obla’s WAEC results, hence, cannot comment on its authenticity.
WAEC had declared Obono-Obla’s result fake and invalid.
The lawmakers, therefore, are curious that he might have forged his way into into entry to the University of Jos and eventually the Law School
On March 15, 2021, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it amended the corruption and certificate forgery charges it filed against the former presidential aide.
The amendment, coming less than two months after Obono-Obla and his co-defendants were arraigned by the commission, reduced the number of counts from 10 to five.
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The amended charges filed at the High Court of the FCT, in Apo, Abuja, on March 4, also revealed that the anti-corruption agency has backtracked on its allegations of certificate forgery sensationally levelled against him in 2019.
Obono-Obla, a former special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Prosecutions, was suspended by the President as the SPIP chairman in August 2019 over “alleged falsification of records and financial impropriety against your person.”
The President suspended him in an August 14, 2019 letter signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha.
About a month later, on September 17, 2019, the President disbanded the SPIP, ordered the ICPC to probe the allegations against Obono-Obla, and prosecute him.
The commission subsequently declared Obono-Obla wanted and arrested him in March 2020.
On July 1, 2020, the ICPC filed 10 counts against him and his co-defendants at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
But the commission subsequently withdrew the charges and refiled the 10 counts at the FCT High Court on July 8, 2020 with Obono-Obla, his former Senior Assistant, Special Duties (Protocol), Aliyu Ibrahim, and the Managing Director of ABR Global Petroleum Resources Ltd, Daniel Omughele Efe, charged as co-defendants.
More details of the trial will follow…
