Two Kwara Civil Servants In Court Over 14m Alleged Fraud

Two Kwara State civil servants, Adeyemo Olarewaju and Tajudeen Alao were on Wednesday docked over allegations of fraud.

The duo who are members of staff of the Kwara State Printing and Publishing Corporation, publishers of The Herald titles appeared before Hon Sunday Adeniyi of the Upper Area Court in Ilorin over allegations of fraud in excess of fourteen million naira.

According to the details of a direct complaint from the Corporation’s New Hope Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited, the duo are the immediate past Chairman and Secretary of the cooperative society respectively.

The Criminal summons against the duo disclosed that they could not account for the sum of N14,609,100 (fourteen million, six hundred and nine thousand, one hundred naira) only after their tenure which was between 2012 to 2022.

The Criminal summons further revealed that, “However, after the tenure of the duo, the Ministry of commerce and cooperative officials audited the account of the cooperative and imposed one million naira penalty on the defendants for their poor management of the account of the cooperative society but the defendants failed to pay the penalty uptil date.

“The defendants also failed to refund the sum of N14,609,100 misappropriated despite repeated demands, hence this application.”

In his bail application, counsel to the defendants, Bisi Adedayo of Onaolapo Chambers, assured the Court that his clients will not jump bail.

The Complaint’s counsel, Hawawu Nana Abubakar of Manzuma Issa & Co., did not oppose the bail application.

The defendants who pleaded not guilty to the charges were granted bail in the sum of N1 million naira each with sureties who must be civil servants on Grade Level 12 and above. The Court also asked each of the defendants to deposit three million naira in the Treasury.

The case was adjourned to the 21st of October 2024 for hearing.