Alleged N186.5m: Court Admits More Evidence Against App Developer
Justice Abimbola Awogboro of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, admitted in evidence more documents tendered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against a former Covenant University App Developer, Dan Onorouioghene Owolo.
Dan Owolo is standing trial on a three-count charge bordering on stealing and money laundering to the tune of N186, 552, 909.00(One Hundred and Eighty-six Million, Five Hundred and Fifty-two Thousand, Nine Hundred and Nine Naira.
Testifying at Tesday’s proceeding, the third prosecution witness, PW3, Ahmed Audu Abubakar, an investigator with the EFCC, narrated to the Court the events that led to the arrest, investigation, and prosecution of the defendant.
He said, “Sometime in May 2019, the defendant was brought to our office by a representative of Covenant University. They came with him alongside a petition alleging that he stole about N186m through an application that the school asked him to develop for the payment of school fees as well as payment from other vendors.
“As a team, we looked at the petition, understood the nature of the petition, and commenced investigation immediately.
“Due to the nature of the petition, the allegation was that he was paid to create an application for the payment of school fees and payments from other vendors. The defendant created an app named CU-Sanwo. It is important to note that the defendant was not contracted from outside to do the job, but by a staff of the University when this assignment was given to him.
“He engaged a company that provided him with the platform, through which he created the app. The name of the company is Shockinflux.
“The app works in such a way that students go to the school portal to make payments online. A wallet is attached to the app that receives payment of school fees from students and further disburses randomly to five nominated bank accounts by the school for onward utilization by the school. No other account should be linked to the wallet asides from the five accounts nominated by the school.
“The defendant used his expertise and the access he had to the app to manipulate and move funds to his personal account for his personal use.”
Giving details of the steps taken upon the arrest of the defendant, Abubakar told the court that “When the defendant was handed over to us, we checked his BVN and got the list of accounts linked to his BVN. We thereafter wrote letters to the banks, requesting his account statement, in order to trace the fraudulent transactions.
The prosecution counsel sought to tender the defendant’s statements of account in evidence.
The documents were admitted and marked as exhibits B and C. The witness further revealed that in the process of analyzing the defendant’s statement of account, the name Adedayo Abimbola Oladayo was amongst the major beneficiaries of funds.
Abubakar further told the court that analysis of the account showed several debits into Dan Owolo’s account between July and December 2018, which were monies fraudulently moved from the wallet created by the defendant.
The statements of the defendant were tendered in evidence, admitted, and marked as exhibit F.
Justice Awogboro adjourned the matter to June 6 for a continuation of trial.
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