The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission has arraigned a couple, Mr. Olaolu Dada and Mrs.
Florence Dada, one Blessing Ejeh and six civil servants for allegedly receiving
over N300m in salaries from the Federal Government through the
notorious ghost worker syndrome.
The civil servants –
Osuntope Opeyemi, Aderibigbe Taiwo, Usman Dayo, Johnson Adedokun, Oyebade
Ayodeji and Ojeifo Sylvanus — are Federal Government employees in the Ministry
of Agriculture, the Ministry of Water Resources and the Office of the
Accountant-General of the Federation.
The EFCC told Justice
Peter Kekemeke that the civil servants allegedly diverted millions of naira by
creating fictitious names and accounts in the federal payroll system between
2009 and 2016.
It was alleged that Mr.
and Mrs. Dada and Ejeh submitted their account details to the civil servants
who in turn added them to the government’s payroll through which over N11m was
siphoned.
It was learnt that the
bubble burst when the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Auditing discovered
that one of the civil servants allegedly operated 200 fictitious accounts with
one Bank Verification Number.
About 50 houses were
also traced to another civil servant when the case was referred to the EFCC.
The accused persons all
pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to them.
The counsel for Mr. and
Mrs. Dada, Darlington Ozurumba, told the court that his clients had applied for
plea bargain with the prosecution which would include the return of some funds.
The prosecution counsel,
Mukhtar Mohammed, asked the court to remand the suspects in prison custody
pending the commencement of trial.
Justice Kekemeke granted
the prayers of the EFCC and adjourned the case till November 8 to hear their
bail applications.
The judge ordered that
they remain in prison custody. (Punch)
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