Justice N.I. Buba of the Federal High Court, Enugu on Thursday sentenced a former Rector of the Enugu Polytechnic, Ndeabor, Dr Isidore Ojukwu Nwankwo, to one year in prison for N1.1 million fraud committed against some students.
The court sentenced Nwankwo to one year in prison following his prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The EFCC, in a statement on Friday, said the court in its ruling also ordered the former rector to refund the money to the students.
The statement read, “The former rector’s journey to prison began when one Eze and 19 other students of the school petitioned the Enugu zonal office of the EFCC, alleging that they were deceived into believing that the school was partly owned by the Enugu State government and accredited by the appropriate authorities, following which they paid the sums of N5,000 for admission form, N10,000 for acceptance fee and N35,000 for first-semester school fees, before discovering that it was an illegal institution.
“Investigation by the EFCC revealed that the state government has no business with the school; and that the school is neither recognised by the state government nor registered with the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).”
In his judgement, Justice N.I. Buba noted that the prosecution counsel, Michael Ani Ikechukwu, proved his case against the defendant beyond reasonable doubt.
The judge, therefore, convicted and sentenced Nwankwo to one-year imprisonment and further ordered him to restitute the students, the sum of N1,153,700.00.
