A Port Harcourt-based pastor, Gobari Maxwell, of the
Believers’ Love World Ministry aka Christ Embassy
Church was yesterday arraigned before an Ikeja High
Court for allegedly defrauding one of his members,
Osazuwa Okungbowa, of N4.5 million.
Maxwell, who superintends over one of the satellite
churches led by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, was said to
have tricked Okungbowa into believing that he would
help him procure two plots of land near the Port
Harcourt Polytechnic, Bori Camp.
A detective, Shedrach Ternenge Iyo, attached to the
Cyber- Crime Section of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), told the court that the
commission received a petition from the complainant
sometime in September 2013, alleging that the pastor
received N4.5 million from him through his wife’s First
Bank account in bid to buy two plots of land.
Iyo, while being led in evidence by the prosecution, A.
A. Adebayo, said the accused was not invited by the
commission since he couldn’t be reached through the
phone but was arrested in Port Harcourt and brought to
Lagos for proper investigation.
According to the charge sheet, Maxwell allegedly
committed the offence on June 12, 2012 at Ikeja
Judicial Division by dishonestly converting the said sum
to his personal use. He is facing a one-count charge of
stealing contrary to Section 258(a)(b) of the Criminal
Law of Lagos State, No. 11, 2011.
“During investigation, the agency sent a letter to the two
banks which were used for the transaction; a First Bank
account belonging to the complainant’s wife and a
Diamond Bank account belonging to the pastor,
requesting for account statements.
“When we received
the banks’ response, we analysed both accounts and
discovered that the sum transferred for the land
purchase was N3.8 million while N700,000 was
transferred as a loan to the pastor,” the detective said.
Iyo, however, noted that Okungbowa made the land
payments in seven instalments through his wife’s bank
account from June24 to May 31, 2012 in the variations
of N300,000 and N500, 000 consecutively.
He added: “After volunteering a statement and being
read a caution, the pastor confessed to have received
the money but claimed he used it to settle his elder
brother’s hospital bills, who was brought back to Nigeria
from the United States of America (USA) for treatment.”
When asked by the prosecution if the agency visited the
said land, Iyo said “we didn’t visit the land since the
accused had told us that there was actually no land to
visit and besides the area was under grave crises”.
“The pastor told the commission that there is no land
and he didn’t have any specific land to buy for him,
beside the area he had promised to purchase for him
was already having community fights,” the detective
added.
Meanwhile, the defence counsel, V. I. P. Nwana,
objected to the statement of account which was
presented to be tendered as exhibit by the prosecution,
arguing that the witness was not the maker of the said
document and therefore could not testify to its
documentation as exhibit.
Nwana argued that the detective was not a bank
operative and under the Evidence Act could only give
evidence to the said document if the originator of the
document was permanently indisposed to tender it,
which was not the case.
Justice Kudirat Jose adjourned the matter till April 13
and 14 for conducting a trial within trial based on the
admissibility of the document and continuation of trial.
