Kogi Judiciary Uncovers N2.4 Million Fraud in Revenue Generation

Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja

A thorough investigation of the accounting records of Kogi State Judiciary has uncovered a purported payment of N2.4 million to a bank account that could not be traced in the bank statement.

This discovery was sequel to the reforms in the revenue generation process at the state’s high court that was introduced by the Acting Chief Judge of Kogi State, Hon. Justice Josiah Majebi, to sanitise the court.

This was disclosed in press statement that was issued yesterday in Lokoja by the Information Officer, Mr. Saeed Sadiq. 

The report of the fraud was submitted by the court’s newly created Head of the Directorate of Revenue Services, Mr. Sunday Paul, that initiated the setting up of a Revenue Task Force (RTF).

Justice Majebi inaugurated the RTF at the judiciary’s headquarters in Lokoja to principally unravel more possible fraudulent activities in the generation of revenue by the court.

“The director of the new department, Mr. Paul, had routinely embarked on checking the account inflows of the court in conjunction with the court’s deposit money bank into which payments and fines due to the court were meant to be paid.

“In the course of doing that, he stumbled into a syndicated mechanism where payments to the court by legal chambers, legal practitioners and other individuals manipulated the customised bank tellers and bank stamps to defraud the court.

“Consequent upon the discovery, the chief judge vowed to stop the crime and sanction whoever is found culpable be he staff or members of the public.

“In the report dated 9th November, 2022 and captioned ‘Fraudulent Practice,’ the director disclosed, amongst other findings, that in his monthly reconciliation of accounts the sum of N2.4 million said to have been paid into the court’s account was not paid despite evidence of payment showing same.

“On October 28, 2022, the sum of N2,400,000.00 was paid as judgment debt revenue and bank teller was presented as evidence of payment. I went to the bank on November 7, 2022, to collect bank statement for my monthly reconciliation for the month of October, 2022.

Amazingly, the said N2.4 million was not in the bank statement,” the report stated.

“In my curiosity to know what happened to the said money, I immediately informed the process unit where the money is supposed to come from. I photocopied the teller and I took it to the bank for verification. My verification reveals that the money was not paid into the revenue account,” the report said.

In addition, the report stated that the rubber stamp on the teller and the signature on it were all fake. It said that the fake signature also tallies with those of previous years as an indication of how long the fraud has been perpetrated.

As a result of his recommendation that the fraud be immediately investigated, the RTF was constituted and given two months within which to turn in its report.

The chief judge, who said that the matter was already before the police for thorough investigation, charged the body to unravel similar or any other form of fraud being perpetrated in all other revenue generating entities at the headquarters and all courts across the state.

The Chief Judge said: “We are inaugurating this RTF to urgently verify all payments allegedly made to the high court of justice in the last two years.

“This ad-hoc task force will move to all revenue generating departments and all the courts in the state. It will verify all payments made and under what subheads; scrutinise available records and determine whether there are supposed to be records where there are none; confirm, or not, payments made to the court during the period and their worth; analyse all bank documents, including deposit tellers and recommend appropriate remedial actions to be taken.

“In picking members of the body, we carefully looked at the people we want to constitute the RTF which has as Chairman, Mr. Sunday Paul of the Directorate of Revenue Services. Its other members are Olorunshola Oloruntoba of the Directorate of Litigation; Olufunke Oga of the Directorate of Area Courts and Maliki Adeku of the Directorate of Personnel Management while Mr. John Friday Egwu of the Directorate of Finance and Supplies will serve as its secretary.”