Prisons deputy comptroller ‘jailed for 7 years’

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday secured the conviction of Joseph Friday Idachaba, a top prison officer, spokesman Wilson Uwujaren, said on Friday.

Justice JJ Majebi of the Kogi state high court, Okene, convicted and sentenced Idachaba, deputy comptroller of prisons, to seven years imprisonment for offences bordering on obtaining money by false pretence.

According to Uwujaren, the convict is to pay the sum of N1, 403,114.09 in restitution to Nigeria Prison Service.

Arraigned in 2012 on a three-count charge, the convict was found guilty on Count 3 of the charge by the trial judge, who, however, acquitted him on two remaining counts.

Count three of the charge reads: ‘That you Joseph Friday Idachaba, being a deputy comptroller of Nigeria Prison Service, and Onoja D Ruth (IP) also a staff member of Nigeria Prison Service, sometime between July 2012 and February 2013 at Lokoja, Kogi state did, with intent to defraud, obtain N1,403,114.09 only from the federal government of Nigeria via the Nigeria Prison Service with pretence that same amount was the payment of monthly salaries from Nigeria Prison Service, which amount was credited into the UBA Plc account No 2054047736 belonging to one Opia Mohammed Ugbade (now at large), through NIGSS electronic fund transfer (NEFT) between July 2012-to February 2013, that the said Opia Mohammed Ugbade’s name found in the Nigeria Prison Service electronic payroll is not a staff member of the service which pretence you knew to be false and hereby committed an offence contrary to section 1(1) paragraphs A&B and punishable under section 1(3) of the Advance Free Fraud and Other Related Offences Act.”