A civil servant, Elvis Simon Okorenyi, has been arraigned before Justice S. C. Oriji of the High Court of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), for allegedly defrauding a job-seeker, Titus Tavershima, of N1 million.
Okorenyi, who is a staff of the Federal Ministry of Aviation, is facing a seven-count charge bordering on forgery and giving “fake employment” to a job-seeker by forging an appointment letter with the intent to support his claim that the latter had been successfully employed in the Federal Civil Service.
He was also accused of forging a letter of promotion with intent to support his claim that the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had approved Tavershima’s promotion to the post of Senior Executive Officer.
The charge sheet further revealed more forgeries by Okorenyi to authenticate the fake employment including a fake redeployment circular purportedly from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, redeploying the victim from the Ministry of Information and Culture to the Ministry of Health, and a forged Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) registration print-out with the intent to support his claim that his details were on the platform.
According to the charge sheet, the actions of the accused person were contrary to and punishable under Section 8 (a) (ii) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, Section 1(1) (a) and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2000, Section 363 and punishable under Section 364 of the Penal Code Act, 1990.
The accused pleaded “not guilty” on all counts of the charge against him while his counsel, Paul Atayi, filed an application for bail.
In deciding the application, the trial judge granted the suspect bail in the sum of N3 million and two sureties in like sum, who must be residents of Abuja.
The case was adjourned to 27th June, 2019 for hearing.