Court jails Gobir seven years over ₦514m Fraud

Justice R.I.B. Adeniyi of the State High Court sitting in Ikeja Lagos has convicted and sentenced Alhaji Mohammed Gobir to seven years imprisonment for stealing, obtaining under false pretence and possession of fraudulent document.

He was arraigned on March 17, 2016 by the the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a 17- count charge bordering on obtaining under false pretence, stealing, possession of fraudulent document and forgery.

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, first arrested Mr. Gobir, a well‑known socialite and former Director overseeing the Business Development Committee at Afromedia Plc, on September 12, 2015, at his Ikoyi residence.

The action followed a petition filed by Afromedia, alleging that Gobir had betrayed the company’s trust and misappropriated vast sums of money under false pretenses.

EFCC’s investigation claimed that Gobir was introduced to Afromedia in 2008 by Synergy Capital Advisory Limited, the firm’s private placement consultant.

Upon joining the board, he promised to inject ₦1 billion into Afromedia, a pledge that secured his appointment as Chairman of the Business Development Committee.

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Once in his position, the commission says, Gobir exploited his influence to orchestrate a series of fraudulent transactions. Among the sums he is accused of diverting are:

US$3,500,000, purportedly for facilitating partnerships with international investors ₦514,457,151 claimed as expenses related to overseas negotiations;

US$2,102,740, again presented as business facilitation fees; and

£51,000, allegedly for miscellaneous corporate expenditures abroad.

In a more audacious scheme, Gobir fraudulently induced the Company to collect $250,000,000 (two hundred and fifty million dollars) which he claimed was purportedly locked in one UK based bank by the British Anti‑Money Laundering Agency. He told Afromedia that he required a “Waiver Certificate” to secure the release of this purportedly frozen deposit.

One of the counts reads:

“That you, Mohammed Gobir, a Non-Executive Director and Chairman of Business Development Committee of Afromedia Plc between January 2009 and December 2011 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court with intent to defraud obtained the sum of N514,457,151.87 (Five Hundred and Fourteen Million, Four Hundred and Fifty Seven. Thousand, One Hundred and Fifty One Naira, Eighty Seven Kobo) from Afromedia Plc by falsely pretending to Afromedia Plc that the said sum of money represented the cost of facilitating and securing the sum of $70,000,000 (Seventy Million Dollars) from your account in NATWEST Bank, London, United Kingdom as your investment fund in Afromedia Plc out of the $250,000,000 (Two Hundred and Fifty Million United States Dollars) stashed in your account at NATWEST Bank, London, United Kingdom which pretence you Knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, No.14, 2006.”