Ogun socialite remanded for N35.5m scam

Ibadan Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) on Monday arraigned one Mary Maisirat Akerele on a five count charge bordering on stealing to the tune of  Thirty Five Million Five Hundred and Twenty Thousand Naira (N35,520,000:00) before Justice Abiodun Akinyemi of the Ogun State High Court 4,Abeokuta.

It was learnt that trouble started for the 46-years-old socialite, who resides in Aseko area of Idiroko Ogun State, when the EFCC received a petition, alleging that she collected the said sum in installments from one Alhaja Oladoja Abike for the purpose of supplying four truck-load of rice from a rice milling company at Bida, Niger state but diverted the funds.

One of the charge reads: ” That you Mary Masirat Akerele (trading under the name and style of Goodness of Jesus Global Ventures) on or about the 19th day of September, 2018 at Abeokuta within the Abeokuta Judicial Division of the Honourable Court, fraudulently converted to your own use the sum of Eleven Million Naira (N11, 000,000.00) only property of Fausia Abike Oladoja and thereby committed an offence of stealing contrary to  Section 390 (9) of the Criminal Code, Cap. 30, laws of Ogun State, 2006”.

But, the defendant pleaded ‘not guilty’ when the charge was read to her.

Counsel to the defendant, H. A Omikunle  made an oral application for his client’s bail. However, Shamsuddeen Bashir, counsel to EFCC, opposed the application due to  the defendant’s failure to keep the terms  of the administrative bail earlier granted her.

Justice Akinyemi adjourned the case till March 4 for determination of the bail application and ordered the remand of the defendant in the Nigerian Correctional Centre, Ibara,Abeokuta