A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, on Tuesday, admitted more
exhibits against a former Director- General of the Nigerian Maritime
Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi and
five others.

Akpobolokemi is standing trial, alongside five others,  on a 13- count
charge bordering on conspiracy, stealing and fraudulent conversion of
funds, to the tune of N687, 294, 680 (Six Hundred and Eighty Seven
Million, Two Hundred and  Ninety Four Thousand, Six Hundred and Eighty
Naira). His co-accused persons are:  Captain Ezekiel Bala Agaba;
Ekene Nwakuche;  Governor Amechee Juan; Vincent Udoye, Captain Ade
Sahib Olopoenia and Gama Marine Nigeria Limited.

At the resumed hearing of the matter on Tuesday, prosecution counsel,
Rotimi Oyedepo, presented one of the three witnesses he earlier
brought before the court. 

The witness: Olamide Ogunsanya, an Assistant Director in NIMASA  disclosed to the court,  how the sum of
N795,200,000( Seven Hundred and Ninety Five Million, Two Hundred
Thousand Naira only) was paid into the International Shipping and Port
Safety, ISPS, account and  how same was disbursed. The witness told
the court that approval for the disbursement of the money came from
the office of Akpobolokemi.

The document conveying the presidential approval through the office of
the National Security Adviser, NSA, was identified by the witness and
same was admitted as exhibit P22. 

On the document, Ogunsanya identified the endorsement of the first accused person, Akpobolokemi.
Also tendered through the witness are letters from NIMASA to the
Accountant General of Federation and approval from the Accountant
General's office. The documents were eventually admitted as exhibits
P24 and P25 respectively.

The witness also identified the third accused person, Ekene Nwakuche
as the first beneficiary in the disbursement of the N795,200,000. She
told the court that between 16 September, 2014 and 6 November, 2014,
Nwakuche  received N3,000,000 each, on eight occasions, from the ISPS
account totalling N28,000,000 (Twenty Eight Million Naira Only).
Other beneficiaries are Avant Guard Securities, N94,000,000; Extreme
Vertex Limited, N318,000,000; Suco Global, N15,000,000; O2 Services
Limited, N21,200,000 and N16,000,000;  and Aroward Consulting,
N70,000,000.

At the end of the day, the witness said there was a balance of N198,
635 (One Hundred and Ninety Eight Thousand, Six Hundred and Thirty
Five Naira Only) left in the account.

While explaining  the procedure for receiving and disbursing money in
NIMASA, Ogunsanya said a request would be made  to the presidency
through the NSA’s office and when approved, the DG would then asked
the Executive Director to implement. From the executive director’s
office, an internal memo is raised and directed to the Director,
Financial Services Department where payment instructions would be
issued.

The witness further disclosed that on 20 March, 2014, the sum of N447,
000,000 was paid into the ISPS account and same was disbursed
following the same procedure, with a slight change in the
beneficiaries.

In this instance, new beneficiaries were included. They are: Green
Lemon Limited and Seabulk.

Oyedepo asked the witness about the procedure for the award of
contracts in NIMASA and she said the agency has different threshold in terms of contracts award as stipulated by
the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPE). 

She said the DG has an approval limit of N5,000,000. For contracts that exceeds N5,000,000 to
anything below N50,000,000 it falls into the threshold of parastatal’s
tenders board. 

Contracts  that are between N50,000,000 to below N100,000,000, falls under the threshold of ministerial tenders board
and any contract above N100,000,000 falls within the presidential or
Federal Executive Council’s threshold.

The N318,000,000 payment to Extreme Vertex Limited was sighted as
example of violation of BPE’s stipulated threshold by the former
leadership of NIMASA.

Ogunsanya said that though the normal procedure for awarding contract
was always followed, she never met or saw any representative from any
of the companies that were alleged to have been awarded the purported
contracts.

During cross examination, the witness admitted that she was one of
the signatories to the ISPS account but when she was asked whether she
was aware of the 2013/14 National Assembly’s budgetary appropriation
for the sum of N447,000,000, Ogunsanya said she had to look at the budget
to be able to answer the question.

Counsel to Akpobolokemi, Joseph Nwobike, SAN, prayed the court for an
adjournment in order to effectively cross examine the witness.
Justice Buba adjourned the matter to Wednesday, 2 March 2016 for
continuation of trial.

Signed: 
Wilson Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity

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