ICPC: Civil Defence officer jailed over N12.2 million employment scam
By Samuel Eugene
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, says it has secured the conviction of one Mr. Solomon Ogodo, a Superintendent of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, for involvement in forgery, employment racketeering and fraud.
The commission made this known in a post on its X microblogging platform on Tuesday.
Recall that the ICPC in December 2022 arraigned Mr. Ogodo in charge no: CR/503/2022 before Honourable Justice M.S. Idris of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Abuja.
He was arraigned for defrauding unsuspecting job seekers to the tune of N12,200,000.
In the 5-count charge, ICPC told the court that the convict had on different occasions hoodwinked some innocent Nigerians into paying different sums of money in the guise of securing employment for them in the Nigeria Correctional Services, NCoS.
In the course of the trial, ICPC’s Prosecutor in the case, Mr. Hamza Sani led evidence before the court on how the convict forged offers of provisional appointments for some applicants into the NCoS.
His actions, according to the commission, are contrary to Section 13 and punishable under Section 68 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000.
ICPC further said that the offence is contrary to Section 363 and punishable under Section 364 of the Penal Code Act, stressing that the actions also violated and are punishable under Section 1 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Related Offence Act of 2006.
Shortly before the jail sentence was passed on Monday, Counsel to Mr. Ogodo, Mr. A. A Nwoye urged the court to convert the jail term to community service for the convict.
The prosecution counsel on his part moved that the court should take cognizance of section 319 (1) a of the Administration of Criminal Justice ACT (ACJA) 2015 to mandate the convict to pay compensation of all the sum collected to the victims of his action.
Justice M.S. Idris in his judgement sentenced Mr. Ogodo to seven years imprisonment on count 1 to 3 (without option of fine) and two-months’ imprisonment or option of fine of five thousand naira on count 4.
The convict equally bagged two months imprisonment on count 5 of the charge without option of fine.
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