Absence of counsel stalls trial of wonder bank operator

Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court, Lagos has adjourned until May 6 in the trial of a “wonder bank operator”, Fortune Etaba, charged with N9.8 billion fraud.
The case was fixed for continuation of trial, but could not go on as scheduled due to the absence of the defence counsel, Joseph Oshoke.
The judge, therefore, adjourned trial and remanded Etaba at the Kirikiri Prisons pending his trial.
Etaba is standing trial alongside his company, Establishment House Limited, on an amended four-count charge bordering on fraud.
He was re-arraigned on January 21 on the amended charge and pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The judge had granted him bail in the sum of N500 million with two sureties in like sum.
Buba also ordered the accused to submit his traveling documents to the court, with an undertaking not to travel outside Lagos during the pendency of the case.
He also ordered the accused to be remanded in prison, pending perfection of his bail conditions.
In the charge, the accused was said to have committed the offence between June 2009 and December 2009.
The prosecutor, Effiong Asuquo, had told the court that the accused fraudulently obtained huge sums of money, totaling N9.8 billion, from several individuals, especially businessmen at the Alaba International Market, Ojo, Lagos.
Asuquo said that the accused deceived the businessmen to believe that they would earn 50 per cent interest on their deposits after 21 days.
The prosecutor said the accused could neither repay the deposited sum or the “multiplied sum” as represented.
He said the offences contravened the provisions of Sections 1 (1) (a), 8, and 2 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2004.