By Nkechi Eze
Justice O. M. Anyachebelu of the Anambra State High Court sitting in Awka has convicted and sentenced the Managing Director of Orient Petroleum Resources Plc, Engineer Nnaemeka Nwawka, and the Sage Nebefeife Foundation to 14 years’ imprisonment each for offences bordering on stealing, fraudulent conversion and gratification involving billions of naira.
The conviction followed a decade-long trial instituted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which arraigned Nwawka alongside other defendants on a 10-count charge. In an official signed statement by the Commission’s spokesman, Dele Oyewale, the anti-graft agency disclosed that the defendants were found guilty after the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
One of the counts stated that Nwawka, Jude Anniekwe Cyril and the Registered Trustees of Sage Nebefeife Foundation, sometime between April 23 and December 21, 2012, fraudulently converted to personal use the sum of N82,856,934. The money was said to have been transferred from the account of Vhelbherg International Limited domiciled in Standard Chartered Bank into the account of the foundation with First Bank.
Another charge detailed how the defendants, between January 8 and May 24, 2013, allegedly converted an additional N29,620,733 transferred from the same company’s account into the foundation’s account.
The defendants pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to them, prompting the EFCC, through its counsel Victor Ukagwu, to proceed to full trial. Over the course of ten years, the prosecution called four witnesses and tendered several documentary exhibits marked P1 to P24.
Evidence presented before the court showed how Nwawka allegedly ensured that contracts were awarded to companies linked to his associates by Orient Petroleum Resources Plc. The prosecution demonstrated how payments were made to those companies and subsequently traced back to him through his foundation, from where the funds were allegedly withdrawn and used for personal purposes.
Counsel to the first and third defendants, U.N. Udechukwu, SAN, and counsel to the second defendant, E.S.C. Obiora, SAN, offered defences on how the contracts were handled. However, Justice Anyachebelu found two of the defendants guilty and convicted them accordingly.
In delivering judgment, the court held that the prosecution had established its case beyond reasonable doubt and sentenced Nwawka and his foundation to 14 years’ imprisonment each. The court further ordered the convicts to refund N140,900,000 to Orient Petroleum Resources Plc.
The case stemmed from a petition written to the EFCC by Chief Cletus Ibeto, an investor in the company, who alleged that he invested N25 billion into Orient Petroleum Resources Plc but that Nwawka, through the award of suspicious and inflated contracts to companies linked to his associates, diverted substantial sums which were later funneled through the Sage Nebefeife Foundation.
The judgment marks a significant milestone in the Commission’s sustained efforts to hold corporate executives accountable and strengthen transparency within Nigeria’s corporate and investment landscape.
