The Port Harcourt Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Friday has secured the conviction of one Tarila Ebizimor for obtaining money under false pretences to the tune of four million N4.000.000.00 naira.
Ebizimor who was re-arraigned on 11 November 2018 had pleaded not guilty to the four counts amended charges against him, leading to full trial.
Delivering the judgement, Justice A.T Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, found the defendant guilty of the criminal charges against him and sentenced him to 7 years imprisonment.
The convict who was a supervisor in the Security Department of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, sometime in August 2013 represented himself as personal assistant of the Managing Director of the NDDC and obtained the sum of N4million from the petitioner on the pretext that he will help facilitate the award of road construction contract to him.
Also Read: Inflation rises to 11.98% following border closure – NBS
One of the charges against the convict reads: “That Tarila Ebizimor on the 13th day of August 2013 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court did fraudulently obtain the sum of two million (N2,000,000) Naira, which said sum was paid into your Fidelity Bank account No. 5330259983, by a means of transfer from God’s Grace Haulage Limited, Fidelity Limited on the pretext that you were to facilitate the award of Road Construction Contract from Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a pretext you know to be false and thereby committed an offence, contrary to Section 1(i)(a) of Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act”.
