The federal high court in Enugu has convicted Isidore Nwankwo, who was said to have paraded himself as the rector of Enugu Polytechnic, Ndeabor, for defrauding students of the institution of N1,153,700.
The court sentenced Nwankwo to one year in prison following his prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The EFCC, in a statement on Friday, said the court — in its ruling on Thursday — also ordered the former rector to refund the money to the students.
Nwankwo’s offence is in contravention of section 1(1)(a) of the advance fee fraud and other related offences act, 2006 and punishable under section 1(3) of the same act.
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The anti-graft agency said the students had petitioned the EFCC, accusing Nwankwo of deceiving them to believe the school was partly owned by the state government.
“Nwankwo’s journey to prison began when one Eze and 19 other students of the school petitioned the Enugu Zonal Office of the EFCC, alleging that they were deceived into believing that the school was partly owned by the Enugu State government and accredited by the appropriate authorities, following which they paid the sums of N5,000 for admission form, N10,000 for acceptance fee and N35,000 for first semester school fees, before discovering that it was an illegal institution,” the statement reads.
“Investigation by the EFCC, revealed that the state government has no business with the school; and that the school is neither recognised by the state government, nor registered with the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
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“While noting that prosecution counsel, Michael Ani Ikechukwu, proved his case against the defendant beyond reasonable doubts, Justice N.I. Buba convicted and sentenced him to one-year imprisonment and further ordered him to restitute the students, the sum of N1,153,700.00.”
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