12th November, 2010
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has adjourned the arraignment of former Board members of Spring Bank and the head of some subsidiaries of the bank till Monday 15 November, 2010.
The accused persons were expected to be arraigned before Justice Binta Murtala Nyako this morning but the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, failed to produce the accused persons on the ground that some of them were not around.
In a 15-count criminal charge number FHC/M/1098C/10 it was alleged that Dr. Suleiman Ndanusa, Vincent Omoike, Augustine Avwunefe, Abubakar Bakare, Abdulrahman Umar, Hussein Mohammed, Dr. Emmanuel Anuchuya and Gunus Pangerang between June 2007 and December 2008 while acting as members of the Interim management board of Spring Bank Plc, allegedly committed an offence to hit acquired site and constructed new bank branches in respect of approved sum of N57,279,000 paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN for relocation of existing branches without obtaining approval from the CBN.
The Interim management board was also accused of writing off N2.5 billion part of a loan granted to National Sports Lottery, a company owned by Chief Kola Daisi, who is a former director of Spring Bank Plc without CBN approval.
It was further alleged that the former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Charles Ojo and the former Regional head of the bank in Wuse, Abuja, Mr. Ferguson Uzomah about July 2009 granted a credit facility in the sum of N280 million to Ahmed Kuru, Natthan was granted N50 million, while Field Marshal Engineering got N8 million.
It was also alleged that Ifeanyi Onuorah, Alimi Adesina Mukaila and Eric Okoruah while being the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Spring Mortgage Plc, head investment banking and assets management of Spring Capital Market Limited and staff of the corporate finance department of Spring Capital Market Limited respectively between November 2008 and February 2009 fraudulently conspired together, forged letter and signature on the letter head paper of Allan Fassi Nigeria Limited for application for N500 million note insurance line.
They also allegedly forged the letter-headed paper of the company for the resale of 458,333,333 units of Spring Mortgage shares.
—Akin Kuponiyi