The Federal High Court, Abuja, has dismissed and acquitted a former Head of Service of the Federation, Stephen Oronsaye from the N2 billion fraud charge filed against him by the Federal Government.
Delivery the judgement, Justice Inyang Ekwo held that the prosecution, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) failed to prove their case to warrant a conviction.
The trial began in 2015 with the arraignment of Oronsaye alongside the Managing Director of Fedrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, Osarenkhoe Afe, when they were docked on 49-count charges bordering on fraud, to which they pleaded not guilty.
The EFCC later amended the charges after separating the parts involving a former head of the Presidential Pension Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina, who was at large at the time.
Maina was later charged separately by the EFCC and was subsequently convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in November 2021.
Equally charged alongside Oronsaye by the EFCC were three companies – Cluster Logistic Limited; Kangolo Dynamic Cleaning Limited, and Drew Investment & Construction Company Limited.
The anti-graft agency alleged that the defendants had between 2010 and 2011, used the firms to divert public funds through procurement fraud.
The EFCC equally accused Orosanye and the others of using inflated biometrics enrolment contracts, collective allowances, and other schemes to siphon money from accounts containing pensioners’ funds.
The Commission also tendered a report of the Auditor-General of the Federation on the Federal Government’s pension accounts which indicted Oronsaye and others of wrongdoing.
