Date Published: 11/30/10

N787M Fraud: Witness indicts UBEC Directors in Court

A federal high court in Abuja was on Tuesday told how a fraud of over N787 million was perpetrated by top officials of the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC through the use of  fake companies and forgery of newspapers publications.

The details of the fraudulent scheme were revealed today before Justice Adamu Bello by a principal prosecution witness in the suit instituted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, against a  former executive secretary of UBEC, Prof. Bridget Omotunde Sokan and three directors as well as a foreign contractor, Alexander Cozman and two of his companies, Intermarkets USA and Intermarkets Nig Ltd.

Sokan and six others were arraigned on  a  63 count charge, bordering on fraudulent inducement, criminal conspiracy and criminal subversion of due processes in the award of contracts  . The other accused include:  Molkat Manasseh Mutfwang, Michael Mtonga Aule and Dr Andrew Ekpunobi.  Others joined  in the suit are companies used in perpetrating the fraud, Intermarkets USA; Intermarkets Nigeria Limited and Alexander John Cozman.
According to the witness who is now the executive secretary of UBEC,  Dr Ahmed Mohammed Modibo, four companies out of the six that bidded in the phase one supply of plastic
chairs and desk to all junior secondary schools in the federation were all
fictitious. Modibo, while being led  in his testimony by the prosecution witness, Wahab Shittu  told the court that Sokan, 7 th accused
person in the case, directed him to write a  memo to the Education Trust
Funds,  ETF,  for the release of funds for the phase two of the project,  only to be replied by ETF that the phase one of the project was not
properly executed, and as such funds would not be released.
 He said this development  prompted him to scrutinize all the files and realized that funds  for the previous project were misappropriated.
 With this discovery, he said that ,  Alexander Cozman,  a representative of
Intermarket Nigeria Ltd, promised to offer him N10 million  to award the
phase two project to his company, not minding the scam involved in the phase one project.
  Modibo also told the court that the addresses of the four companies that bidded with Intermarket Nigeria Ltd and Intermarket USA in the first phase of the project were all ghost   companies, their addresses as indicated in the bid  documents were all fake. He told the court that the addresses of two of the companies in Port Harcourt were a Unity Bank building and  an Oil Service Company.

 He added that Sokan’s Price and Contract evaluation committee awarded the contract of over N787 million out of which over N636 million was paid as mobilization fee to Intermarket Nig Ltd and the company later given  another sum
of N41.5 million as transportation fee for the distribution of the product which was not in the terms of the contract agreement. He also said that Sokan gave Cozman another N16.5 million as port charges which was not part of the
contract terms. In addition, the witness disclosed that the contract advertisement that was  supposedly culled from “The New Nigerian” and “ Thisday” newspapers of April 16 th, 2005,  were later discovered to be fake when he  visited the National Library and could not get the purported advertisement in the newspapers.  Justice Bello, after listening to the testimony given by Modibo adjourned the case to November 30 th , 2010 for continuation of trial.

When the matter resumed today, the witness told  Justice Adamu Bello  during  cross examination by the defence counsel that Dr Andrew  Ekpunobi  3 rd accused person forged the bid advertisement on the phase one  contract for the supply of plastic chairs for junior secondary schools all over the federation.

Modibo further said that Ekpunobi also issued a memo urging UBEC to pay the contractor 100 percent of the contract sum even before the commencement of the project, while Sokan ordered the   memo for the payment of additional costs of N41.5 million for transportation and N16.5million for port charges which were not part of the contract agreement.

Beside the testimony of the witness, the prosecution also succeeded in tendering about 13 exhibits which were all admitted by the court.

The case has been adjourned to the 14 th and 21 st of February 2011 for continuation of trial.