The Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC on Wednesday April 26,2017 arraigned an Onitsha based
businessman Chris Onyebuchi Ijeoma alongside his company, Tellers International
Limited before Justice I.B.Gafai of the Federal High Court, Awka, Anambra state
on a two-count charge of obtaining money under false pretense and stealing the
sum of N10,000,000 (Ten Million Naira Only) belonging to the head pastor and
general overseer of a Pentecostal church in the commercial city.
Ijeoma’s ordeal started after
a petition was written to the commission alleging that sometime in 2014, he
approached the complainant (General Overseer) with a business proposal to help
raise funds to finance the importation of insecticide/ pest sprayer from the
USA, to the tune of N10m, with a promise to pay back within three months, after
the sale of the products.
The complainant further stated
that having advanced the sum to the suspect, who was also an elder if the
church council, on March 18, 2014, he waited for more than after three months
without receiving any payment as promised. He then approached Ijeoma and
demanded to know why the products were not yet imported, to which he said he
had invested the money in a US-based cream company and that NAFDAC approval was
needed before the goods would be exported to Nigeria; a development different
from what was agreed upon.
When the case was called, the
suspect pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Defense counsel, C.M.
Obijagwam thereafter applied orally for his client’s bail which was denied by
Justice Gafai stating he had to apply formally. He further ordered that the
suspect be remanded in prison custody pending the hearing of the bail
application.
The case has been adjourned to
June 6.
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