Mr. Kayode Odukoya, Managing Director, First Nation Airlines is in big trouble as Justice Mojisola Dada of an Ikeja Special Offences Court has ordered him remanded in prison over an alleged theft of N1.7billion.
The judge gave the remand order moment he was arraigned on a four-count charge of forgery, use of false document, perjury and stealing pressed against him by the EFCC. Joined as defendants in the stealing case are the First Nation and Bellview Airlines.
Earlier during the proceedings after Odukoya had taken his plea, Mr M. S Usman the lead prosecutor for the EFCC, had asked the court to remand Odukoya. “My Lord, I urge the court to remand the defendant pending the trial date. “On three occasions prior to today’s proceedings, the defendant had frustrated his arraignment.”
Responding, Mr John Odubela, Odukoya’s defence counsel, had told the court that the he had a bail application which has been served on the prosecution. “The defendant will not jump bail,” Odubela added. Moment the matter was adjourned till March 26, 2018 for bail application, the defendant was led away from the court room by two uniform EFCC’s officials.
According to the EFCC, Odukoya committed the offences of forgery, use of false document and perjury on March 21, 2013. The EFCC alleged that the CEO of the airlines forged the Memorandum of Loss of Lagos State Certificate of Occupancy registered as No. 33 at page 33 volume 1011 at the Lagos State Land Registry, Alausa, Lagos, in order that the document be acted upon as genuine. The forged document was in respect of a property located at No. 29, Oduduwa St., Ikeja GRA, Lagos.
Odukoya is alleged by the EFCC to have used the false document and also gave false information on oath concerning the loss of the certificate of occupancy at the Lagos State Land Registry. The anti-graft commission also said that on Oct. 7, 2016, Odukoya stole and dishonestly converted to his own use N1.7 billion belonging to Skye Bank. The offences violate Sections 85, 86(1) 278(1)(b), 285, 361(1),(a) (b), 363 and 364(1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011.
FirstNation alleges manipulation of bank figures by Skyebank
Cases of banks manipulating clients’ account are becoming rampant in the country with the recent being the alleged N1.7 billion saga between FirstNation and Skyebank.
A case in point is the Innoson Vs Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), where the bank refused to pay the judgment debt of N2.4B ordered by it to Innoson.
For FirstNation, the airlines has vehemently denied allegations being peddled in the media that the managing director, Mr Kayode Odukoya allegedly defrauded Skyebank of N1.7 billion and was due for an arraignment in court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission but failed to turn up in court.
According to atqnews.co, EFCC had slammed a four-count charge of forgery, use of false documents, perjury and stealing on Mr. Odukoya.
But reacting swiftly, Firstnation said it has repaid a total sum of N3.1Billion in full settlement of both interest and principal due on the credit facilities it collected from the bank.
According to topcelebritiesng.com, Mr. Odukoya took NO personal loan from the Bank and his relevance here is solely in his capacity as the CEO of Firstnation.
It said “Our attention has just been drawn to several online and media reports about us and our CEO, Mr. Kayode Odukoya. On behalf of our company and Mr. Odukoya, we hereby VEHEMENTLY deny the allegations of fraud and forgery. In the course of its ordinary business, Firstnation Airways has normal banking and credit relationship with Skye bank.
It is common knowledge that the Aviation Industry is Capital intensive. The Bank advanced us credit facilities. It is pertinent to clarify that Mr. Odukoya took NO personal loan from the Bank and his relevance here is solely in his capacity as the CEO of Firstnation.
Firstnation has repaid a total sum of N3.1Billion in full settlement of both interest and principal due on the credit facilities. However the Bank continues to wrongly alleged that the Company was still indebted to it. In this regard, we approached the Bank for discussions, seeking reconciliation and amicable resolution. This was following Forensic Audit of all our accounts with bank.
The report revealed full repayment of all the facilities advanced to the company by the Bank. In addition, it revealed that the Bank applied several excesses, arbitrary charges including and accounts manipulation. The forensic Reports was forwarded to the bank with revised copies, as the account manipulation continued till date.
Given the lack of progress in our discussions with the Bank, as all our efforts at resolution were deliberately being frustrated by the Bank, we had no other reasonable option, other than to institute legal action, as far back as April 2017. We then obtained certain preliminary reliefs from the court that parties should maintain status quo until adjudication.
Despite on-going legal proceedings and in clear violation of the subsisting status quo court order and in order to foist a fait accompli on us, the Bank wrote a frivolous petition to EFCC raising false Fraud allegations not previously alleged.
We promptly responded to EFCC’s invitations. The EFCC then directed that parties should reconcile the disputed figures, but the Bank equally frustrated this reconciliation attempt again. We reported back to EFCC of the lack of progress with reconciliation and the Bank’s posture.
Our last visit to EFCC was barely 30 days ago. We have no reasons whatsoever not to attend Court hearings, if this was brought to our attention.
Source: topcelebrities.com.ng
