Court acquits a former NIMASA DG ...Akpobolokemi of embezzlement..

By Afolabi Oyekunle.

A Former Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Patrick Akpobolokemi has been acquitted by a Federal High Court in Lagos of a fraud case.

The EFCC has brought the case against him of colluding with three others in embezzling 8.5 billions of naira.

Justice Ayokunle Faji, dismissed the case while ruling on a no-case submission he and four other defendants filed in a 22-count charge against them.

Akpobolokemi was arraigned before the court alongside Emmanuel Atewe, a retired Major-General and the former Commander of the Joint Task Force Operation Pulo Shield, with two other employees of the agency, Kime Engonzu and Josphine Otuaga.

Faji resolved that the EFCC had not produced a prima facie (sufficient evidence) case against Akpobolokemi and Josephine Otuaga, leading to their discharge and acquittal.

The judge decided that the second defendant, Atewe, and the third defendant, Kime Engonzu, a staff member of NIMASA, had to open their defence because they had a case to answer in counts 12 to 22 of the charge.

In his ruling, the judge stated that not a single piece of evidence presented by the prosecution connected Akpobolokemi and the fourth defendant to the offences they were accused of.

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