N170m fraud: Court frees ex-PDP chairman Ogbulafor but jails co-accused

A federal capital territory high court on Thursday discharged and acquitted Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, former chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of a 17-count charge of corruption filed against him by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

The ICPC had accused Vincent Ogbulafor of N170million fraud.

However, his co-accused, Emeka Ebilah, a former member of the National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC), was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

The jail terms of five years on each of the counts are to run concurrently.

Ogbulafor and Ebila had been indicted for defrauding the federal government to the tune of over N170million through payments to contractors for jobs that were not executed.

At the time of indictment, Ogbulafor was minister of special duties, while Ebila was a member and secretary of NEIC, which was established in 2001 for the verification and payment of debts to local contractors by the federal government.

In his judgment on Thursday, Justice Ishaq Bello held that the court could not, from the evidence before it, establish a connection between Ogbulafor, who was the minister when the allleged offences were committed and the alleged crimes.

But he said Ebila’s confessional statement tendered before the court without any objection from his lawyer corroborated the allegations levelled against him by the prosecution.