The Court of Appeal Sitting in Gombe on Friday sentenced Ma’aji Shettima Arfo, the former General Manager of Maiduguri Flour Mills to 7 years imprisonment for allegedly stealing millions of Naira belonging to the Borno State Government and the Flour mills of Nigeria while he was the General manager of limited liability company.
Recalled that the Borno State High Court, sitting in Maiduguri last year, precisely in November 2021 sentenced the civil servant, Ma’aji Arfo, to 28 years imprisonment for engaging in an N86.1 million contract fraud.
Arfo, who was sentenced to jail by Justice Haruna Mshellia, of Borno State High Court 3, when he was the General Manager of the state-owned Maiduguri Flour Mills Limited, where he committed the fraud.
He was charged on a six-count by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission for offences bordering on abuse of office and conferring undue advantage on himself.
The charge sheet showed that Arfo, while acting as the General Manager of the Flour Mill, between 2014 and 2020, engaged in multiple fraud in violation of Sections 12 and 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, punishable under relevant sections of the same Act.
One of the counts on which he was convicted revealed that he awarded multiple contracts to Falkwat Multilinks Limited, a private company where he was a director, to supply diesel and maize to Maiduguri Flour Mills.
Meanwhile his appeal hit a brick wall, because, ain a unanimous judgement yesterday, the court found Arfo guilty of all the charges against him and held his appeal to be unmeritorious.
Credit : THE VANGUARD.
