Justice A. T. Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, on Friday, sentenced one Tarila Ebizimor to seven years imprisonment for obtaining money under false pretence to the tune of N4million.
The convict, a supervisor in the Security Department of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, was prosecuted by the Port Harcourt Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a four-count charge.
Ebizimor’s journey to prison began sometime in August, 2013, when he paraded himself as personal assistant of the managing director of the NDDC and obtained the sum of N4million from the petitioner on the pretext that he will help facilitate the award of road construction contract to him.
One of the charges against him reads: “That you Tarila Ebizimor on the 13th day of August, 2013 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State within the jurisdiction of this honorable court did fraudulently obtain the sum of N2,000,000, which said sum was paid into your Fidelity Bank account No. 5330259983, by a means of transfer from God’s Grace Haulage Limited on the pretext that you were to facilitate the award of road construction contract from NDDC, a pretext you know to be false and thereby committed an offence, contrary to Section 1(i)(a) of Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act”.
However, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, has described the NDDC as a cesspool of corruption.
Akpabio, a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, stated this during a courtesy call on Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River.