Bank staff testified before the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Apo, Abuja, in connection with an alleged N1.9 billion fraud case filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against a former Deputy Director of Highways at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Augustine Ojo Olowoniyan, along with a surveyor at the ministry’s Department of Highways and Planning, Sulaiman Abdulkadir Muhammed.
This was disclosed in an EFCC statement on Friday.
On March 19, 2025, the EFCC arraigned the defendants on a three-count charge relating to the alleged fraudulent diversion and misappropriation of public funds amounting to N1,936,961,649.00.
“That you, Augustine Ojo Olowoniyan, while serving as Deputy Director of Highways at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and Project Coordinator for the acquisition of titles for Federal Roads, and Sulaiman Abdulkadir Muhammed, while serving as Surveyor in the Department of Highways and Planning, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, between March 4, 2019, and October 21, 2019, in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, used your office to confer corrupt advantage upon yourselves by diverting to your own use the sum of Eight Hundred and Seven Million, Fifty-Three Thousand Naira (N807,053,000.00), despite the funds being budgeted for the acquisition of titles for Federal Roads nationwide, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.”
What Transpired in Court
“The EFCC requested statements of accounts and account opening packages. The statement was extracted from the bank’s server and compared with what we have on the computer to ensure it is the same. Our information is stored in the computer.
“We retrieved soft copies, which were then sent to printers to generate hard copies. After generating the hard copies, we printed the documents, that is, the statements of accounts and account opening packages.
“I compared the printout with what was on the system to ensure that it was accurate. The details were the same. This was then dispatched to the EFCC with a cover letter and certificate of identification. I signed the certificate on behalf of my supervisor, Edward Balande, because he was on leave at that time in Lagos,” NAIJAONPOINT said.
The EFCC also disclosed that it had arraigned the first defendant, Augustine Ojo Olowoniyan, on a separate three-count charge before the same judge for allegedly diverting public funds worth N439,502,200.00 for personal use.
In that court development, Remigus Ugwu, a staff member of Zenith Bank, told the court that Olowoniyan had four accounts with the bank, among other things.
The defendant also pleaded not guilty to these charges.
The accused remains innocent in the eyes of the law pending the court’s final verdict.