A Lagos State Special Offences Court has received a witness account on how Stephen Oshinowo , former secretary to the State’s Scholarship Board, diverted a sum of N127M.

Oshinowo was arraigned on an amended eight counts charges bordering on criminal conversion but pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Monday Moley, an investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, told the court that the accused used his domiciled account with the United Bank of Africa, UBA, to perpetrate each of the alleged fraud.

According to Moley, the defendant received the sum of N30 million in tranches of N10 million from the account of the Board domiciled with the FCMB for  staff welfare and office renovation but later converted same to personal use.

She told the court that the commission froze the defendant’s UBA accounts and commenced an investigation into the allegations, but at the time of freezing the account, the defendant had converted parts of the proceed of the fraud to personal use.

“Our investigation revealed that the defendant sent part of the proceed to his wife, Adenike’s account domiciled with Zenith Bank, pay for flight trips, supermarket sales, POS transactions and kept others in a fixed deposit account.”

However, after the evidence of the witness, the EFCC counsel sought to tender the defendant’s statements to the court. But the defendant counsel, Lawal Pedro (SAN), opposed the submission of the statements on the grounds that they  were obtained under physical and emotional torture.

Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo adjourned the case till March 7, 2021, for a trial within trial.