JUSTICE Oluwatoyin Ipaye of a Lagos High Court sitting
in Ikeja was Monday told how an owner of a bureau de change, Knox Bridge
Trading Limited, Adedokun Tajudeen Dipo allegedly obtained N155 million from
Oboden Ibru under false pretence.
At the resumed
hearing on Monday, the prosecution witness, Mr. Oboden Ibru told the court that
the defendant obtained the sum of N155 million for the exchange rate of the sum
of $1,000,000.
Led in evidence
by EFCC counsel, Mr. Kayode Oni, Oboden said that the defendant was introduced
to him by a friend, Niyi Adebayo, as a bureau de change operator in 2010.
“On March 18, 2011, we entered a transaction and I
transferred N155 million to defendant’s company, Knox Bridge Trading Limited
GTBank account for the purpose of exchange, a transaction, which should have
been completed in two weeks.
“When I didn’t receive the dollar, I called him
(defendant) but I began to get excuses. When the money was not forthcoming, the
defendant told me that his money was stuck in a UK bank.”
Oboden further told the court that after numerous
promises to pay the money and in spite of intervention from friends and family
members, the defendant still failed in his promise.
According to
him, “in an attempt to settle it, we met and the defendant signed an
undertaking. We agreed he would issue post-dated cheques from his company,
Lorient Harbur Hotel Limited. He issued and handed 20 post-dated cheques of
N7,335,000.
“The cheque dated March 15 was presented to the bank on
March 23, 2012 twice and it bounced. I did not present the other cheques since
the one I presented had already been stamped and returned unpaid.”
He added that he informed his lawyer, who wrote
petition on his behalf to the EFCC and attached photocopy of the cheques, as
well as the defendant’s written undertaken.
The court,
therefore, admitted in exhibit, the cheques and marked them as exhibit 4a-x.
Oboden pleaded
that the court should help him recover the money, adding, “there are people,
who rely on the money, not just myself alone.”
However, the defendant’s counsel, Mr. Abiodun Onidare,
urged the court to adjourn the matter since he was just discharged from the
hospital after a surgery.
Justice Ipaye
subsequently adjourned till April 1, 2014 for continuation of the trial.
EFCC had
arraigned Dipo on two count charge bordering on obtaining money under false
pretence, stealing and fraudulent conversion.
He, however,
pleaded not guilty to the charge delineated.