A Lagos High Court judge, Justice Lawal Akapo on Monday, 21 December, sentenced a court Registrar, Oluronke Rosolu to 10 years imprisonment for aiding Fred Ajudua to defraud former Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi of $330,000.
The court found Rosolu guilty on all two-count charge of conspiracy and fraud.
The fraud was purported to have taken place years back when Ajudua was at the Kirikiri Prisons with Gen. Bamaiyi
Ajudua and Mrs Rosolu were initially arraigned together but Rosolu later opted for a separate trial.
During her defence, the registrar who is due for retirement next year, denied aiding Ajudua to defraud Gen. Bamaiyi.
“I did not receive $330,000 from Lt. Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi neither did I go to the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons to see him on Dec. 20, 2004,” she claimed while giving evidence before the court.
Led in evidence by the defence counsel, Mr Bamidele Ogundele, Rosolu said that she had never met Bamaiyi and Ajudua prior to her arrest by the EFCC.
“I knew Bamaiyi and Ajudua only as defendants in separate criminal cases before Justice Oyewole. I never had any personal interactions with either of them until I was summoned by the EFCC in Abuja in 2013,” she said.
Rosolu claimed that she was confronted by Bamaiyi and a prison official, ACP Garba Abdullahi while in the custody of the anti-graft agency in Abuja over the alleged fraud.
“Bamaiyi and Abdullahi confronted me at the EFCC office claiming that money was given to me in a ‘Ghana must go’ bag. I told them it wasn’t me and I had never been to the prison,” she said.
Earlier during the trial, the Lagos State Controller of Prisons, Mr Vincent Ubi, told the court that it was against prison policy to bring foreign currency to the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons.
Ubi who was a Deputy Controller of Prisons from 2004 to 2006 at the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons when Bamaiyi and Ajudua were in custody made the claim while giving evidence as a key witness for the defence during the trial.
“We don’t accept dollars in Kirikiri Maximum Prisons.
“Any money brought for a detainee is taken to the Records Department and such money needs my approval before such money can be released to a detainee.
“Most times, the detainees need such monies to pay their lawyers,” Ubi said.
He said he never encountered Rosolu during time he spent working as a senior prison official at the prison.
“No visitor can come into Kirikiri Maximum Prisons without my approval.
“I have never seen the defendant before at the prison,” Ubi said.
The EFCC had insisted that Rosolu was an accomplice in the crime and called several witnesses to buttress its case.
