By Adenike Lawal<\/p>\n
In a significant development stemming from a bench warrant issued by the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Nigerian Police have taken Mr. Joseph Eriki Director of Investigation and Prosecution at the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) into custody over his alleged involvement in a large-scale land fraud case.<\/p>\n
Mr. Eriki was arrested alongside Mr. Boniface Agwu. Both men are the 1st and 3rd defendants in a criminal case brought by the Federal Government, which accuses them of criminal conspiracy, unlawful land trespass, and document forgery. The charges arise from a broader investigation into illegal land acquisition in Abuja.<\/p>\n
Justice Suleiman Belgore of the FCT High Court (Garki Division), had issued the arrest warrant on May 27 after repeated failures by the accused to appear in court. According to the prosecution, the defendants had been granted administrative bail and were fully aware of the criminal charges but repeatedly avoided court summons. Despite assurances from their legal representatives C.S. Ekeocha and E.E. Apeh that the accused would appear, the court was forced to adjourn the matter multiple times.<\/p>\n
The court has now rescheduled the arraignment for October 30 and ordered that the detained individuals remain in custody until then.<\/p>\n
The allegations center on plots 461\u2013470 and 486\u2013496 in Sabon Lugbe East Layout, Abuja, said to belong to Etha Ventures. Prosecutors claim that the accused unlawfully encroached on the property and erected structures with the intent to deceive and dispossess the rightful owner. To legitimize their claim, they allegedly secured a fraudulent consent judgment in Suit No. FCT\/HC\/CV\/240\/2018, transferring the land title to one of the implicated companies, Super Structures Limited.<\/p>\n
In addition to Eriki and Agwu, several others have been named in the charge sheet but remain at large. These include Ikechukwu Kanu; Donatec Electrical Company Ltd.; Super Structure Ltd.; Weatherfield Engineering; Marine Service Ltd.; Asher Information Services Ltd.; Prince Isaac Omoluwa; Nwaimoneye Augustine Onyisi; Sarajo Aliyu; and Ogbole Michael.<\/p>\n
The case reflects a deepening crackdown on corruption tied to land allocation and property fraud within the FCT. Authorities have signaled their intent to pursue all named individuals and ensure they face justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Adenike Lawal In a significant development stemming from a bench warrant issued by the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Nigerian Police have taken Mr. Joseph Eriki Director of Investigation and Prosecution at the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) into custody over his alleged involvement in a large-scale land fraud case. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":71852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[916],"class_list":["post-71845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-abuja-police"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71845","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71853,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71845\/revisions\/71853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}