The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned Josephine Anietie Philip and native doctor Effiong Okon for alleged involvement in land racketeering, facilitating fraudulent activities and financially benefiting from them. They were brought before the Federal High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, presided over by Justice Chigozie Onah.<\/p>\n
The EFCC charged them with six counts, including criminal conspiracy and obtaining N24.3 billion by false pretense. Specifically, Philip is accused of fraudulently obtaining N16.3 billion from Ndifreke Godwin Friday under the false pretense of selling a piece of land. Okon is accused of laundering N6.5 million, knowing it was part of an unlawful act.<\/p>\n
Pleading not guilty, the duo’s case took a turn when prosecution counsel Joshua Abolarin requested their remand at the Nigerian Correctional Centre. Defense lawyer C.I. Odo made an oral bail application, but Justice Onah upheld the prosecution’s position, ordering the accused to be remanded until November 1, 2024, when the bail application will be heard.<\/p>\n
The EFCC alleges that Philip and Okon collected N16.3 billion and N8 million from two buyers for the same 932-square-meter land in Uyo. The court has fixed November 1, 2024, for the bail application and hearing. This case is part of the EFCC’s ongoing efforts to combat financial crimes in Nigeria, as seen in other recent cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned Josephine Anietie Philip and native doctor Effiong Okon for alleged involvement in land racketeering, facilitating fraudulent activities and financially benefiting from them. They were brought before the Federal High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, presided over by Justice Chigozie Onah. The EFCC charged them with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":51207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[223],"class_list":["post-51206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-efcc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51208,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51206\/revisions\/51208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}