Mr. Benjamin Joseph
The
Federal Government of Nigeria has ordered the withdrawal of the charges purportedly
filed by Femi Falana (SAN) against the Chairman, Zinox Group, Leo Stan Ekeh,
his wife and few others based on false information over an alleged N170m contract
fraud with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) which has seen Mr.
Benjamin Joseph, owner of Citadel Oracle Concepts Limited, an Ibadan-based ICT
retail firm, standing trial for falsely petitioning the Federal Government,
alleging that Ekeh and others colluded in defrauding it and his company in
executing the contract.
The
directive was issued via the office of the Attorney General of the Federation
(AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and communicated in a
letter dated October 28, 2022, from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)
of the Federation, to the law firm of Falana and Falana.
Part
of the letter reads: “I am directed to write about the above caption
and to inform you that the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and
Minister of Justice in exercise of the power conferred upon him by section
174(1)(c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as
amended, has withdrawn the authorization earlier granted to you dated 10th
May, 2022 to prosecute the case mentioned below. You are accordingly, requested
to withdraw Charge no. FCT/HC/CR/469/2022 in the interest of justice.”
The
letter was signed by M. B. Abubakar, Director of Public Prosecutions of the
Federation on behalf of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
Consequently,
by this letter, the Charge No: FCT/HC/CR/469/2022, purportedly filed by Falana
& Falana against Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh, Chioma Ekeh, Chris Eze Ozims, Shade
Oyebode, Charles Adigwe, and others, is no longer tenable and now baseless. A copy of this letter, which was issued by the
FG after a review of the facts of the matter, has been communicated to the
chambers of Mathew Burkaa SAN, legal counsel for Mr. Ekeh and others, under
cover of a letter dated Monday 31st October 2022 from the Office of
the DPP of the Federation on behalf of the Attorney General of the Federation,
reconfirming the withdrawal of the authorization earlier given to Falana &
Falana and directing them to discontinue the said Charge no.
FCT/HC/CR/469/2022.
This,
therefore, lays to rest the allegations bandied about by Mr. Benjamin Joseph of
Citadel Oracle Concept Limited, that Mr. Ekeh and the other persons mentioned
in the various publications are to be arraigned in court on 8th
November 2022. Rather, it is on this date that the firm of Falana & Falana
is supposed to appear in court and formally withdraw the said Charge no.
FCT/HC/CR/469/2022, following the clear directives of the Honourable Attorney
General of the Federation.
Conversely, the Honourable AGF, through the Office of the DPP, in a letter dated June 6, 2022 had directed the Inspector General of Police to prosecute Benjamin Joseph to a logical conclusion. The directive came a couple of weeks after the Attorney General discovered that material information was withheld in the application by Falana &Falana for the authorization earlier granted to prosecute Ekeh and others. Crucially, Mr. Falana SAN, who had only recently started representing Benjamin Joseph, failed to disclose to the AGF that the FCT High Court presided by Honourable Justice Damlami Senchi had in February 2021 delivered a judgment in Charge No. FCT/HC/CR/244/2018, dismissed as false and malicious the various allegations put forward by Mr. Benjamin Joseph and awarded the sum of N20m against him as damages for false petitioning and to serve as a deterrence to others who may engage in false information to the investigation agencies.
The respected
SAN also failed to disclose that his client has refused to be cross-examined
since 2018 in an ongoing criminal case (Charge No. CR/216/2016) instituted against
him by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Office of the IGP based on
false information on the same allegations. Also, it was not disclosed to the
Honourable AGF that the Nigerian Police Force Headquarters had a comprehensive final report dated 1st December 2020, after a thorough review of the facts
of the case, absolved Mr. Ekehand all the aforementioned persons of any
criminal liability in the entire transaction leading to this case, but rather
recommended the continuation of the trial of Mr. Benjamin Joseph which began
since 2016.
Consequently,
he is due to appear in court on Thursday, November 3, 2022, as directed by the Office
of the AGF.
Despite
these deliberate omissions by his legal counsel, Mr. Benjamin Joseph had embarked
on a media trial, publishing a series of sponsored fake news against Mr. Ekeh,
with the intent to blackmail him as confirmed by his former partner, Princess Kama.
Kama, who was responsible for helping Joseph win the bid for the FIRS contract,
had recently come out to state that Joseph was an ingrate who had attempted to
divert the entire funds for the contract without paying for the laptops
supplied to them on credit, despite being the beneficiary of an interest-free
credit facility from Technology Distributions Ltd. without which it would have
been unable to execute the contract. According to her, Joseph failed in
convincing her to go along with his dastardly plans; he had attempted to take
all the profits from the deal against their pre-agreed sharing percentage – a
move she also resisted.
‘‘This
infuriated him and he demanded to take all the profits from the contract which
I also resisted because we had a pre-agreed sharing percentage. Chief Afe
Babalola, who represented him at the time, tried to intervene by asking me to
concede a larger portion of the profit to him but Benjamin was greedy and
wanted all. It was at this point that he turned around to claim that he was not
aware of the contract, that his company was fraudulently used to execute the
contract with a fake Board resolution, and that no single laptop was supplied. Why
didn’t he report to the Police earlier if indeed a fraud was perpetrated on his
company?”Kama had
revealed.
This
latest development and intervention by the Federal Government further vindicates
the unflinching position of the management of Zinox that its Chairman, Ekeh,
wife and others were not in any way guilty of any wrongdoing by extending
credit facility to Citadel in the long-drawn case which has spanned nearly 10
years. Zinox had insisted that it would not succumb to any attempts at
blackmail and that it would not negotiate with any would-be blackmailers, even
as it had consistently expressed faith that the course of justice would
eventually be served in the matter.
The
ongoing saga relates to a 2012 credit sale of HP Laptops to Citadel Oracle
Concepts Limited on an interest-free credit facility when they could not fund
the contract awarded to them by FIRS to supply laptops, along with twelve other
companies. Two directors of Technology Distributions, Barr. Chris Eze Ozims and
Folashade Oyebode, had been appointed signatories to a bank account opened by
Citadel for the disbursement of the funds for the contract, solely as security/guarantee
for the laptops supplied on credit and in view of previous bad experiences from
other creditors of TD. After the FIRS paid all suppliers who were funded by
Technology Distribution (TD), the other companies paid TD the pre-agreed
invoice value.
But
Mr. Benjamin Joseph, the MD of Citadel, tried to divert TD’s fund but his
partner Princess Kama resisted that move. After TD was paid, a dispute arose
between Benjamin Joseph and his partner, Princess Kama, on profit sharing. At a
point, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN who was Counsel to Benjamin Joseph, tried to
intervene and cause an amicable settlement of the profit-sharing dispute. But
Benjamin Joseph wanted the entire money without paying TD.
It was at this point that he changed the story and contended that he was not aware of the contract and that his company was used to defraud FIRS. However, during the investigation by Nigerian Police and EFCC, the FIRS provided proof that Benjamin Joseph was indeed aware of the contract and that all the ordered computers were fully supplied and received by the FIRS. In addition, Mr. Benjamin Joseph again reported the matter to the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigerian Police Force, Milverton Road, Ikoyi. The SFU conducted investigations and indicted him on the basis that a forensic analysis report showed that he signed the board resolution which he alleged was forged. He thereafter lodged another petition to the Police Headquarters, Abuja, and after a thorough investigation, it was found again that his allegations were false. It was on the basis of that finding that he was charged to court in 2016 in Charge No: CR/216/2016 (IGP vs. Benjamin Joseph) for giving false information. That Charge is presently pending before Honourable Justice Peter Kekemeke of the High Court of the FCT, Abuja.
Equally
important, the Police (Prosecution) has closed their case since 2018 and Mr.
Benjamin Joseph has been called upon by the Court to open his defence. Instead
of proceeding with the said defense to the conclusion, he has devised different
tactics in his bid to sway the AGF to discontinue the criminal charge preferred
against him. Interestingly, the law firm of Falana& Falana who filed the
present charge had earlier in 2018 applied to the AGF by a letter dated
November 1, 2018, for a fiat to prosecute Ekeh and the others mentioned in the
articles. In order to convince the office of the AGF, Mr. Joseph submitted some
spurious reports said to have been issued in 2015 and in 2020 by the Nigerian
Police, which his solicitors again used to apply for another fiat. However, the
Nigerian Police Headquarters Abuja, by a comprehensive report dated December 1,
2020, discredited and disclaimed all those reports relied upon by Mr. Benjamin
Joseph, which was used to convince the AGF to grant a fiat in May 2022.
On
this basis and upon a critical review of all documents relating to the case,
the office of the AGF saw through the falsehood and issued a new letter to the
Police dated June 6, 2022 directing the Police to continue the prosecution of
Benjamin Joseph and bring the criminal charge against him to a logical
conclusion. This letter was brought to the attention of the court by counsel to
the Nigerian Police through their letter dated September 26, 2022.
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