The Gombe Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on July 3, 2018 arraigned Atiku Mu'azu Bayum, Mohammed Adi, Ibrahim Abubakar and Abubakar Usman before Justice M.G. Umar of the Federal High Court Gombe on a 30-count charge bordering on forgery, uttering and obtaining money by false pretence. The defendants in their capacities as Chairman, Chief Store Officer, Chief Accountant and Director of the Gombe State Board of Internal Revenue, are alleged to have conspired to forge documents to fraudulently obtain the sum of N25,060,000 belonging to Gombe State Government. 

 

Investigation revealed that the documents forged included several receipt attached to payment vouchers for which payments were released and converted to their personal use in the cause of their duties.

One of the counts reads:
“That you, Atiku Mu'azu Bayum, Mohammed Adi, Ibrahim Abubakar and Abubakar Usman sometimes between January 2014 and July 2015 at Gombe, Gombe State within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court in your capacities as Chairman, Chief Store Officer, Chief Accountant and Director of the Gombe Board of Internal Revenue with intent to defraud did obtain the sum of N25,060,000 (Twenty Five Million, Sixty Thousand Naira) from the coffers of the Gombe State Government by using several payment vouchers knowing to be false whereas you converted  same to your personal use and thereby committed an offence contrary to and Punishable under Section 1 (1)(a) and 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Related Offences Act, 2006 respectively”.

They all pleaded “not guilty” to the charge, and were thereafter granted bail in the sum of N2 million each and two sureties in like sum, one of which must be a civil servant not below the rank of a director.

The case has been adjourned to October 11, 2018.

 

            Media and Publicity
             4 July, 2018