Maiduguri court jails MD for N99m fraud

Glory Ebomah

Justice Aisha Kumaliya of the Borno State High Court, Maiduguri, on Wednesday, March 7, 2024, convicted and sentenced Alhaji Kyari Mohammed, managing director, Kyari & Sons Company Nigeria Limited to one year imprisonment.

Mohammed was first arraigned on June 21, 2021 by the Maiduguri Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC before Justice Umaru Fadawu of the Borno State High Court, Maiduguri on two charges bordering on conspiracy and criminal misappropriation to the tune of N99,750,000.00 (Ninety-Nine Million Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira).

At the resumed hearing of the matter, Justice Fadawu recused himself and returned the case file to Borno State Chief Judge for reassignment based on the objection raised by the defence counsel W. Y Maikyau.

Thereafter, on Thursday, September 22, 2022, Kyari was arraigned before Justice Aisha Kumaliya of the Borno State High Court, Maiduguri on two-count amended charges bordering on conspiracy and criminal misappropriation.

Count one read: ”That you Kyari Mohammed being a Managing Director of Kyari & Sons Company Nigeria Limited and alter ego of Kyari & Sons Company Nigeria Limited,  a company registered in Nigeria, sometime March 2018 at Maiduguri, Borno State within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, did conspire among yourselves to obtained the gross sum of N99,750,000.00 (Ninety Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) only, which you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 8(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences and Punishable under the same Act.”

Head, Media and Publicity, EFCC, Dele Oyewale, said the defendant pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charges preferred against him by EFCC.

Counsels for the prosecution, Mukhtar Ali Ahmed and S.O Saka, in the course of the trial, presented three witnesses and tendered documents as exhibits before the court.

Counsel for the defendant W.Y Maikyau, prayed the court to temper justice with mercy and sentence the defendant with an option of a fine “as he is a first-time offender”.

Justice Kumaliya, thereafter, convicted and sentenced Mohammed to one-year imprisonment with an option of N200,000.00 (Two Hundred Thousand Naira) only. The judge further ordered the convict to pay the sum of N99,750,000.00 (Ninety-Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) only to the petitioner or spend ten years in the Correctional Centre.

The convict’s journey to the Correctional Centre began when a petitioner alleged that he fraudulently collected food items amounting to N99,750,000.00 from him, under the guise of supplying the items to a Non- Governmental Organization, NGO, with a promise to pay for the items within forty-five days.

Mohammed neither paid for the food items nor returned them to the supplier.