A former Commissioner representing Akwa Ibom State on the
board of the intervention agency, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC,
Pastor Godwin Moffat Eyo was, Monday, convicted and sentenced to three years
imprisonment by an Akwa Ibom State High court for stealing 56 transformers
meant for oil producing communities in the state.
The convict who was prosecuted by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a 56-count charge that borders on stealing and
conversion of 56 electricity transformers released to him by NDDC for
distribution to communities in Akwa Ibom state, was found guilty on 37 of those
counts by Justice Idongesit Ntem B. Isua and sentenced to three years
imprisonment on each of the counts. He was however discharged and acquitted on
19 counts. The sentences are to run concurrently.
The convict was said to have applied for 90 (Ninety)
electricity transformers and 4 generators from NDDC for Akwa Ibom State
sometime in February, 2006. Approval was given for 70 (Seventy) transformers
but he diverted same to his house in Eket on the pretext that there was no
space to accommodate the newly issued 70 units of transformers at the NDDC
office in Uyo. He thereafter sent only 14 Units to NDDC office in Uyo while he
withheld 56 units which he could not account for till date. The 56 transformers
are valued at Two Hundred and Twenty million, One hundred and Seventy Six
thousand, Three hundred and Twenty Naira (N220, 176, 320).
One of the count reads, “That you Pastor Godwin Moffat Eyo
being a former Akwa Ibom State representative on the Board of the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC) on or about 14th April, 2006 at Uyo in the Uyo
Judicial Division did fraudulently steal a 300 KVA/33/0.415 Transformer Serial
No. 1712496 valued at Four Million, Eighteen Thousand, Five Hundred and Sixty
Naira (N4,018,560.00), property of NDDC and thereby committed an offence of
stealing contrary to Section 399 and punishable under Section 404 of the
Criminal Code Cap. 38, Volume 2, Laws of Akwa Ibom State, 2000”.
Source
Vanguard
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