Four staff members of Dangote Group were on Monday sentenced to various prison terms by an Ogun State High Court sitting in Abeokuta for stealing N15m belonging to their employer.
The four men – Adewale Dalmeida, Ibrahim Lawal, Afeez Olaniba and Lukman Adam – were on December 6, 2018 arraigned before Justice O. J. Bamgbose on two counts of conspiracy and stealing by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
They pleaded not guilty to the charges.
However, on December 16, 2018, the defendants changed their plea to guilty after entering a plea bargain with the prosecution.
According to the EFCC, a petition was received from the company that Dalmeida, a fleet analyst, whose job schedule included monitoring, tracking and reporting trucks of Dangote Cement, Ibese Plant, connived with the chief driver of the company, Lawal, and a Ghanaian driver, Adam, and Olaniba, who worked as an agent at the Nigerian-Benin border, to defraud the company of N15m.
It was gathered that the defendants diverted nine trucks conveying 800 bags of cement each, valued at over N15m, which were meant to be delivered to the company’s customers in Togo.
According to the EFCC, the defendants perpetrated the act through the use of fake identity cards and truck number plates.
Delivering his judgment on Monday, Justice Bamgbose held that he found the defendants guilty of the two counts and thereafter sentenced them to various prison terms.
“The first defendant is sentenced to two and a half years on each count and it shall run concurrently from the date that he was arrested and detained, being September 14, 2018. The money and property recovered from him shall be forfeited to Dangote Cement and he shall enter into a bond with the EFCC to be of good character and never to commit any crime again within Nigeria and overseas.
“The second defendant is sentenced to eight months on each count and to run concurrently from September 12, 2018. The sum of N1.6m recovered from him shall be forfeited to Dangote Cement and after, he shall enter into a bond with the EFCC.
“The third defendant is sentenced to eight months on each count and to run concurrently from the date of arrest. The total sum of N900,000 recovered from him shall be forfeited to Dangote Cement and after, he shall enter into a bond with the EFCC.
“The fourth defendant is sentenced to eight months on each count and to run concurrently from the date he was arrested and detained. The money recovered from him shall be forfeited to Dangote Cement and after the term, he shall enter into a bond with the EFCC to be of good character and never to commit any crime again within Nigeria and overseas,” the judge ruled.
