Kogi High Court uncovers N4.8m fraud, fake tellers in state judiciary

KOGI State High Court has uncovered N4.8million fraud allegedly carried out by some judiciar y workers in the state.

This was disclosed in a report submitted to the Acting Chief Judge, Hon. Justice Josiah Majebi, by the Chairman Revenue T ask Force, Sunday Paul.

The task force was inaugurated by Hon. Justice Majebi to principally unravel possible fraudulent activities in the generation of revenue by the Kogi State High court.

Chairman of the Revenue Task force, Sunday Paul, w hile presenting his findings to the Acting Chief Judge said he had routinely embarked on checking the account inflows of the co u rt, in conjunction with the court’s deposit money bank into which payments and fines due the court were meant to be paid.

According to him, in the course of doing that, he stumbled on a syndicated mechanism, where pay -

ments to the court by legal chambers, their practitioners and other individuals were manipulated with customised bank tellers and bank stamps to defraud the court.

“In the report dated November 9, 2022 and captioned: “Fraudulent Practice”, we gathered, amongst other findings, that in monthly reconciliation of accounts, the sum of N2.4m said to have been paid into the court’s account was not paid despite evidence of payment showing same.

“On October 28, 2022, the sum of two million, four hundred thousand naira ( N2,400,000) was paid as judgment debt revenue and bank teller was presented as evidence of payment. I went to the bank on November 7, 2022 to collect bank statements for my monthly reconciliation for the month of October 2022. Amazingly, the said N2.4 million was not in the bank statement,” the report indicated.”