High profile corruption: How N1.2b fraud jailed Dariye 10 years; Wagbatsoma escapes hammer
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In our review of high profile corruption trials today, a former governor of Plateau State and Senator representing Plateau Central, Joshua Chibi Dariye was tried in a N1.2 billion Naira money laundering case and was hammered fourteen years which was later reduced to ten years by Court of Appeal.
Walter Wagbatoma, the Chairman Ontario Oil and Gas Limited, meanwhile escaped hammer after his 10 years sentence by the Lagos High Court in Ikeja was quashed by the by Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal.
The appeal Court, on February 9, 2018, discharged the convicted persons in the case.
Read on:
Joshua Chibi Dariye – N1.2 billion money laundering
Joshua Chibi Dariye is the Senator representing Plateau Central. He was the governor of Plateau State from 1999 to 2003 and was reelected in 2003 before he was impeached in 2006.
Dariye stood trial since 2007 on a 23-count charge bordering on money laundering, abuse of office and corruption.
He was accused of embezzling over N1.2 billion ecological funds.
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court Gudu, in Abuja on Tuesday12/6/18 sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment for fraud and misappropriation of funds.
The jail term was later reduced to 10 years by the Appeal Court. Case concluded.
Walter Wagbatoma – N1.9 billion fuel subsidy scam
Walter Wagbatoma is the Chairman Ontario Oil and Gas Limited arraigned along with Mrs. Adaoha Ugo-Ngadi, the Managing Director of the company and others in a suit No. ID/115C/2012 before the Lagos High Court over N1.9 billion oil subsidy scam.
Walter Wagbatsoma; AdaohaUgo -Ngadi; Fakuade Babafemi Ebenezer and Ontario Oil & Gas Nigeria Limited are alleged to have fraudulently obtained the sum of N1,959,377,542.63 (one billion, nine hundred and fifty nine million, three hundred and seventy seven thousand, five hundred and forty two Naira, sixty three Kobo) from the Petroleum Support Fund for a purported importation of 39.2 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit.
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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had arraigned the convicts before the court on August 1, 2013, alongside Mr. Babafemi Fakuade, an official of the Petroleum Products Price and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
Besides the fuel subsidy trial, Wagbatsoma was in 2017 arrested in Germany over his involvement in alleged money laundering in a multimillion pound fraud.
He was held in the United Kingdom on charges relating to a £12 million National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Trust fraud.
The Lagos High Court in Ikeja sentenced Walter Wagbatsoma and Adaoha Ugo-Nnadi to 10 years imprisonment from January 13, 2017.
She also ordered restitution for Ontario Oil and Gas, and asked the company to refund N754 million being the amount it defrauded the Nigerian government.
However, Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal on February 9, 2018, discharged the convicted persons in the case.
Reading the appellate court’s decision, Haruna Garba, one of the judges, while upturning the sentence held that the grounds upon which the appellants were convicted were faulty because Mr. Wagbatsoma’s charges were not severed before the conviction.
Wagbatsoma was also convicted by Leicester Crown Court in the United Kingdom in January 2018, for conspiracy to launder money in an international fraud and money laundering investigation.
Read also:
High profile corruption: Akpabio in whopping N108b fraud case, Yerima, Tukur too
[This Publication includes part of a compendium by Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) covering corruption cases as at 22nd of November, 2019.
