Court re-arraigns businessman over alleged forgery

A businessman, Paul Ozigbo, was on Wednesday re-arraigned before a Federal High Court in Abuja over charges bordering on forgery, criminal conspiracy and illegal conversion of properties.

The re-arraignment followed the transfer of the judge hearing the matter to another division of the Federal High Court.

The Police had last year, in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CR/239/2020, accused Ozigbo of forging Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) documents, conversion of family properties into personal use amongst others.

He was also accused by others at large to have at different times obtained various sums of money totalling N10.40 billion with fraudulent documents.

Ozigbo pleaded not guilty to all the charges and was admitted to bail in the sum of N20 million with a surety in like sum.

Justice Okon Abang who granted the bail then held that the surety must be resident in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and also owns a landed property in the FCT.

Justice Abang had also fixed February 23, 2021, for commencement of trial.

Justice Abang was affected by the major redeployment of judges in the Federal High Court necessitating the reassignment of the case to a new judge.

Shortly after his re-arraignment, Ozigbo’s counsel, Mr Hope Ejiofor informed Justice Donatus Okorowo that his client had earlier perfected the bail granted by Justice Abang and urged the court to allow him to enjoy the previous bail.

Since the request was not opposed by the prosecution lawyer, Mr J. Nwadike, the court agreed to allow the defendant to enjoy the previous bail and adjourned till October 18, 2021, for trial.

The defendant was accused in the 12-count charge of conniving with others at large to forge a CAC’s document by forging the signature of late Engineer Hillary Ozigbo and used same to effect the change of directors of the company, known as Ozigbo Engineering Company Limited.

He was also alleged to have illegally converted the property and assets of late Hillary Ozigbo within Nigeria and overseas to himself.

In one of the counts, he was said to have converted 67 hectares of land in Imo state and another 109 hectares of land at Eleme, Rivers state to himself, thereby denying others their legitimate shares of their father’s property.

Ozigbo was also accused of using a forged Power of Attorney to obtain the sums of N40 million and to have, in 2014 used the forged document to obtain a property worth N5 billion said to belong to Ozigbo Engineering Limited.

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