Afrigather The Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee (EFCC) has set its sights on a Rivers State couple, Emmanuel Dike and Ugochi Eziaku Dike, as they face prices in an alleged N500 million funding fraud.
The couple, alongside their firm, Dike & Phil Associates Ltd, was arraigned on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, by the Port Harcourt Zonal Command of the EFCC. The costs embody conspiracy, acquiring cash underneath false pretence, and felony conversion of funds to private use.
In accordance with one of many prices, the couple, together with others nonetheless at massive, purportedly defrauded Captain Chukwuemeka Stanley Ikeri and his firm, Clipboard Workplace Superstores Restricted, of N500 million between August 24, 2020, and February 15, 2021. The funds have been allegedly obtained underneath the pretense of being invested to yield a ten% curiosity, a promise the defendants are accused of realizing to be false.
In the course of the arraignment, Emmanuel Dike and Ugochi Eziaku Dike pleaded not responsible to the costs. Prosecution counsel Dr. B. Ubi requested a trial date, and protection counsel J. C. Okeke sought bail for the defendants to adequately put together for the trial.’
Justice Ajoku granted the defendants bail within the sum of N1,000,000.00 every, with two sureties in like sum. The sureties, who should be civil or public servants with the Rivers State or Federal Authorities of Nigeria, needs to be on grade degree 12 and above.
They’re required to deposit two latest passport images with the court docket registry, they have to possess a Certificates of Occupancy, and be residents of Port Harcourt. Moreover, the sureties should present official letters of identification from the heads of their departments.
The prosecution is tasked with verifying the sureties inside 48 hours and reporting licensed true copies of letters from the heads of their departments to the court docket. Pending the perfection of their bail situations, the defendants have been remanded within the Port Harcourt Correctional Service. The trial is scheduled to begin on January 30, 2024.
