Board’s former chairman diabetic, infected with covid-19 faint many times days to court appearance for N3bn-corruption trial

Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund’s  former chairman Ngozi Olojeme fainted many times, following the onset of her chronic diabetes, compounded with coronavirus infection and heart failures within weeks of her arraignment and trial for N3-bn-financial corruption.

Her lawyer Paul Erokoro (SAN) presented this to Justice Maryam Hassan Aliyu of the High Court of FCT on Monday—as the reason Olojeme couldn’t appear in court.

Erokoro told the Judge that Olejeme’s doctor called her to report immediately to the hospital following her intermittent fainting.

The senior lawyer recalled that the defendant has been diabetic and hypertensive for 30 years and has had four major surgeries in the US and South Africa.

Moved to sympathy, and for the lack of objection to Erokoro’s request for adjournment,   Aliyu fixed December 6 for resumption of the trial.

The EFCC prosecuting her initially declared her wanted when she hopped out of the country in 2015.

The commission eventually arraigned her on a six-count charge, including abuse of office, bribery, procurement malpractices, and others, including allegation that she “dishonestly received the sum of N22,200,000.00” from a contractor with NSITF into her personal account No. 32327505058110 at GT Bank.

She was also accused of receiving $48,485,127.00, which was dollars equivalent to some funds received from contractors as kickback.

The judge ordered her detained in EFCC’s custody on Oct 21. Olojeme secured bail on October 22.