Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja on Monday discharged and acquitted a former Head of Service of the Federation (HoSF), Mr. Stephen Oronsaye of the N2 billion fraud charge filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The case began in 2015 with the arraignment of Oronsaye alongside the Managing Director of Fedrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, Mr. Osarenkhoe Afe.
Ekwo in his judgment held that the prosecution failed to provide enough evidence to warrant a conviction.
Both Oronsaye and Afe were docked on 49 count charges bordering on fraud.
The charges were later amended after EFCC separated the parts involving a former Head of the Presidential Pension Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina, who was then at large.
Maina was later charged separately by the EFCC and was subsequently convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in November 2021.
Equally charged alongside Oronsaye by the EFCC were three companies – Cluster Logistic Limited; Kangolo Dynamic Cleaning Limited, and Drew Investment & Construction Company Limited.
The anti-graft agency also accused Orosanye and the others of using inflated biometrics enrolment contracts, collective allowances and other schemes to siphon money from accounts containing pensioners’ funds.
The anti-graft agency further alleged that the defendants had between 2010 and 2011, used the firms to divert public funds through procurement fraud.
EFCC also tendered a report of the Auditor-General of the Federation on the federal government’s pension accounts which indicted Oronsaye and others of wrongdoing.