After more than ten years of legal battle, Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the high court of the Federal Capital Territory in Gudu, Abuja, has found a former governor of Taraba state, Jolly Nyame, guilty of six of the 41 counts preferred against him.
The former governor who was charged with 41 counts of misappropriating the sum of N1.64bn in 2007 has been found guilty of breach of trust involving his alleged fraudulent approval of N250m for the purchase of stationery and office equipment of December 30, 2004.
The trial had largely been stalled by the successive appeals by Nyame challenging the validity of the charges instituted against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in July 2007.
The trial reportedly began to gain some speed when the Supreme Court laid the defendant’s appeals against the validity of the charges to rest by dismissing it in 2016. The EFCC had charged Nyame with 41 counts of criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation, taking gratification and obtaining valuable thing without consideration.
The prosecution’s case against Nyame revolved around alleged diversion of N1.64bn of Taraba state’s funds while he was governor. It alleged that the alleged criminal breach of trust was in breach of section 315 of the Criminal Code Act, the act of criminal misappropriation.
The prosecution led by Totimi Jacobs (SAN) had on November 22, 2016, closed its case against Nyame after calling 14 witnesses. Nyame, testified in defence of himself and called additional three witnesses.