A bank officer testifying before Justice Ismail Ijelu of Ikeja Special Offences Court has admitted under oath that businesswoman and Managing Director of Omritas Energy Limited, Mrs Oluremi Ebun-Phillips, did not sign the cheques allegedly presented to AYM Shafa Limited meant for the repayment for Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) which was not completely supplied.
Giving evidence in Justice Ismail Ijelu of Ikeja Special Offences Court in Ikeja, Lagos State, southwest Nigeria on Tuesday, a senior officer of Access Bank, Mr Chibueze Chukwuma of the department of Conduct and Compliance, told the court while being cross-examined by the defence counsel, Akin Olatunji, that the signature on the four cheques allegedly presented to the complainant, AYM Shafa Limited, was not of the defender.
The cheques were a major reason the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) brought the defender to court on criminal charges.
Ebun-Phillips, and her company, Omritas Energy Ltd, are standing trial in the court on a five-count charge bordering on stealing and issuing dud cheques to N57, 690,000.00.
She was alleged to have fraudulently converted the sum of N57,690,000.00, property of AYM Shafa Limited meant for the supply of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), which was not completely supplied.
The defender, Ebun-Phillips, had earlier in her evidence told the court that the N57,690,000.00 represented the AGO AYM Shafa refused to load due to a crash in price at Omritas Energy Limited’s nominated depot in Akwa Ibom State.
One of the counts reads: “Oluremi Ebun Philips and Omritas Energy Limited, sometime in 2016 at Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, fraudulently converted and stole the sum of N57,690,000.00, property of AYM Shafa Limited meant for the supply of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), which you failed to supply.”
Another count reads: “Oluremi Ebun Philips and Omritas Energy Limited, on or about the 10th of April 2017 at Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, knowingly issued a Diamond Bank cheque for the sum of N14, 298,075.00 payable to AYM Shafa Limited, which when presented for payment was dishonoured because no sufficient funds were standing to the credit of the account.”
However, in his evidence on Tuesday, the Access Bank staff said there is only one signatory on the account with his bank which is that of Oluwasegun Johnson Omodele Phillips, the chairman of Omritas Energy Limited, which is also on the Mandate Card.
When the defence counsel presented the questionable cheques to the banker in the court, Chukwuma disclosed that the signatory on the cheques was the same as the one on the Mandate Card, hence it was not Oluremi Ebun-Phillips that signed the cheques.
On the reason the cheques were not honoured by the bank upon presentation by AYM Shafa, the banker said the amount on the cheques violated the threshold of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which stipulates that cheques above N10 million should not be honoured by any bank in Nigeria no matter the huge amount of money that might be inside the account.
