Breaking: Court finds ex-Taraba governor Nyame guilty of fraudulent approval of N250m
Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the high court of the Federal Capital Territory in Gudu, Abuja, has found a former governor of Taraba state, Jolly Nyame, guilty of six of the 41 counts preferred against him.
They are counts 1, 2, 6, 10, 12 and 14, The Punch reports.
The former governor who was charged with 41 counts of misappropriating the sum of N1.64bn in 2007 has been found guilty of breach of trust involving his alleged fraudulent approval of N250m for the purchase of stationery and office equipment of December 30, 2004.
Legit.ng gathered that the court’s surroundings wore an unusual look Wednesday, May 30, with policemen checking vehicles on the road and at the gate leading to the court.
Legit.ng gathered that people were also frisked before allowed into the courtroom.
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The trial had largely been stalled by the successive appeals by Nyame challenging the validity of the charges instituted against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in July 2007.
The trial reportedly began to gain some speed when the Supreme Court laid the defendant’s appeals against the validity of the charges to rest by dismissing it in 2016.
The EFCC had charged Nyame with 41 counts of criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation, taking gratification and obtaining valuable thing without consideration.
The prosecution’s case against Nyame revolved around alleged diversion of N1.64bn of Taraba state’s funds while he was governor.
It alleged that the alleged criminal breach of trust was in breach of section 315 of the Criminal Code Act, the act of criminal misappropriation
The prosecution led by Totimi Jacobs (SAN) had on November 22, 2016, closed its case against Nyame after calling 14 witnesses.
Nyame, testified in defence of himself and called additional three witnesses.
Punch reports that the former governor decked in a dark brown kaftan with a cap to entered the court room at about 9.02am.
The judge, who reportedly entered the courtroom at about 9.40am, briefly attended to a case and then directed that Nyame’s matter be called at about 9.46am.
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As soon as a matter was called, Nyame, who was seated in the second-to-the-last row of the right side of the courtroom walked to the dock close to the left hand side of the bench.
The judge started reading the judgment at about 9.51am while Nyame is seated in the dock.
Legit.ng previously reported that a former governor of Kaduna, Ramalan Yero, spent about four hours at the office of the EFCC in the state on Friday, May 25.
He was interrogated over an alleged N700 million campaign fund scandal.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Yero was at the EFCC office in Kaduna from around 9am till about 1:30pm when he walked out smiling.
The report said the former governor thanked his supporters who were outside the EFCC office for their solidarity and asked them to go to the mosques for Juma’at prayer. He declined to make comment to the press.
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Source: Legit.ng
