The defendant pleaded ‘not guilty’ when the charge was read to her.
The Ibadan Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned a 46-year-old socialite, Mary Maisirat Akerele, on a five-count charge bordering on stealing to the tune of N35.5million before Justice Abiodun Akinyemi of the Ogun State High Court 4, Abeokuta.
The alleged fraudster, who resides in Aseko area of Idiroko in the State, when the anti-graft agency received a petition, alleging Akerele collected the said sum in instalments from one Alhaja Oladoja Abike for the purpose of supplying four truck-load of rice from a rice milling company at Bida, Niger state but diverted the funds
One of the five-count charge reads: “That you Mary Masirat Akerele (trading under the name and style of Goodness of Jesus Global Ventures) on or about the 19th day of September 2018 at Abeokuta within the Abeokuta Judicial Division of the Honourable Court, fraudulently converted to your own use the sum of N11 million, property of Fausia Abike Oladoja and thereby committed an offence of stealing contrary to Section 390(9) of the Criminal Code, Cap. 30, Laws of Ogun State, 2006”.
The defendant pleaded ‘not guilty’ when the charge was read to her.
Her counsel, H A Omikunle made an oral application for her bail.
But counsel to EFCC, Shamsuddeen Bashir, opposed the application due to the defendant’s failure to keep the terms of the administrative bail earlier granted her.
Justice Akinyemi adjourned the case till March 4 for determination of the bail application and ordered the remand of the defendant in the Nigerian Correctional Centre, Ibara, Abeokuta.
