By Johnbosco Agu,Kwara<\/p>\n
The Ilorin Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has secured the conviction of three defendants, including a company, for offences bordering on unlawful possession of solid minerals, with a total of 58.23 tonnes of lithium and lead ore forfeited to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n
The convicts are Abdullahi Dauda, Great River Mining Company Limited and Mohammed Aminu, a truck driver who conveyed the minerals.<\/p>\n
Justice Abimbola Awogboro of the Federal High Court sitting in Ilorin, Kwara State, gave the judgment while deciding on the two separate cases filed by the EFCC against Dauda in one case and Great River Mining Company Limited and Aminu in the other.<\/p>\n
The charge sheet against Dauda read “That you, Abdullahi Dauda, sometime in February, 2026 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, without lawful authority, was found in possession of 18 tonnes of solid minerals conveyed in a truck with registration number: SKK-93-XB contrary to and punishable under Section 1 (8) (b) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act, CAP M17 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004”<\/p>\n
Similarly, particulars of the charge against Great River Mining Ltd and Aminu read:
\n“That you, Great River Mining Company Ltd and Mohammed Aminu sometimes in February, 2026 at Ilorin, Kwara State within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court had in your possession of 40 23 tons of LEAD ORE a mineral of the Iron Ore family which mineral you knew or reasonably ought to have known forms part of the proceeds of an unlawful act, to wit: illegal mining and thereby committed an offence contrary to S. 18 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 and punishable under Section 18 (3) of the same Act.”<\/p>\n
At the trial, the defendants pleaded guilty to their respective charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following the guilty pleas, Innocent Mbachie and Mustapha Kaigama, who prosecuted the cases on behalf of the commission urged the court to convict the defendants based on their admittance of guilt, the unchallenged evidence tendered before the court, and the provisions of the law<\/p>\n
In his judgment, Justice Awogboro sentenced Dauda to 12 months’ imprisonment, with an option of a \u20a61 million fine.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The court also ordered the owner of the truck used to convey the 18 tonnes of lithium to pay \u20a65 million into the EFCC Recovery Account, while the mineral was forfeited to the Federal Government through the commission.<\/p>\n
In the same vein, the court sentenced Great River Mining Company Limited and Aminu to 12 months’ imprisonment each, with an option of a \u20a61 million fine each.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The owner of the truck conveying the 40.23 tonnes of lead ore was also ordered to pay \u20a65 million into the EFCC Recovery Account, while the mineral was forfeited to the Federal government through the EFCC.<\/p>\n
End<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Johnbosco Agu,Kwara The Ilorin Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has secured the conviction of three defendants, including a company, for offences bordering on unlawful possession of solid minerals, with a total of 58.23 tonnes of lithium and lead ore forfeited to the Federal Government. The convicts are Abdullahi Dauda, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19825,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19824\/revisions\/19825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}