UNICAL staff arraigned over ₦11.4m fraud

Andrew Eigbokhaebholo, an official at the University of Calabar, Cross River State, has been arraigned before the Federal High Court in Calabar over a fraud of N11.4m.

Andrew Eigbokhaebholo was arraigned alongside his company, Panandy Oil and Gas Nigeria Limited, before Justice S. M. Shuaibu, on one count bordering on obtaining by false pretences.

The defendant, who claimed to be a travel agent, reportedly obtained the said sum from the complainant under the guise of helping his wife to secure a United States of America visa, accommodation and other logistics.

The complainant’s wife had planned to travel to the US to have her baby.

The complainant, who was carried away by the fact that the defendant’s children were US citizens, borrowed the sum to pay the defendant, but was denied a visa at the US embassy.

The charge reads; “That you, Andrew Eigbokhaebholo “M” and Panandy Oil and Gas Nigeria Limited between May 2019 and June 2019 at Calabar within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court with intent to defraud did obtain the total sum of N11,470,000.00 (eleven million, four hundred and seventy thousand naira only) from one Mfa Erim Egodo ‘M’ under the pretence that you are a travel agent and that you will secure a visa to the United States of America for his wife, accommodation during and after the birth, hospital fees and other logistics, a pretence you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1 (1) (a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Frauds Related Offences Act 2006 and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the same Act”.

Eigbokhaebholo pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Justice Shuaibu adjourned the matter till March 1, 2021, for the hearing of the bail application, while the defendant was remanded in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.