A former Head of Service of the Federation Stephen Oronsaye has been discharged and acquitted by the federal high court in Abuja, on the N2 billion fraud charge filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Justice Inyang Ekwo while delivering judgment in the matter held that the prosecution failed to provide enough evidence to warrant a conviction.
The trial began in 2015 with the arraignment of Oronsaye alongside the Managing Director of Fedrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, Osarenkhoe Afe, when they were docked on 49 count charges bordering on fraud, which they pleaded not guilty.
The charges were later amended after the anti-graft Commission separated the parts involving a former head of Presidential Pension Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina, who was then at large.
Maina was later charged separately by the EFCC and was subsequently convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in November 2021.
Also charged alongside Oronsaye by the EFCC were three companies – Cluster Logistic Limited; Kangolo Dynamic Cleaning Limited, and Drew Investment & Construction Company Limited.
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The anti-graft agency alleged that the defendants had between 2010 and 2011, used the firms to divert public funds through procurement fraud.
The EFCC equally accused Orosanye and others of using inflated biometrics enrolment contracts, collective allowances and other schemes to siphon money from accounts containing pensioners’ funds.
The commission also tendered a report of the Auditor-General of the Federation on federal government’s pension accounts which indicted Oronsaye and others of wrongdoing.
Finally, the trial court, laid to rest a trial that has lasted about 8 years.
(Editor: Paul Akhagbemhe)
