A Gudu Upper Area Court in Abuja on Friday began trial of an ex-youth corps member, Omala Mathias Achema, for alleged N1.3 million fraud while he was serving at the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

Achema, who was granted bail in the sum of N1.4 million by the same court on Oct. 22, 2015, is facing trial on a two-count charge bordering on theft and criminal misappropriation.

The witness, Bernard Friday, a police officer attached to the Department of Security and Criminal Intelligence (DSCI), FCT Command, Abuja, testified against the defendant.

He said “the defendant is well known to me due to the written petition by Dr Sam Amadi, the CEO of NERC.

“Achema was posted as a youth corps member by NYSC to NERC to carry out his one-year mandatory primary assignment.

“Achema was accepted there in January 2015 and deployed to the accounts section of NERC.

“The corps member was given the password of the computer and also availed of other codes for him to work with in the accounts section.

“His main duty was to be posting payments meant for beneficiaries of the commission to their various account numbers as designated in the schedule which contains the names of all the beneficiaries of NERC.’’

Friday told the court that NERC was, however, alerted when internal complaints started brewing about unremitted monies by the commission.

He added that “in the month of July 2015, the commission decided to look into the matter and it discovered that Achema had removed one of the names of a particular account and replaced it with another name and changed the account number and posted money to the account.’’

He said that Achema succeeded in altering the names and account of 10 beneficiaries, diverting the money to his friends and relatives’ accounts.

“Some of these people are his fellow corps members and after successfully transferring the money to their accounts, he will go and retrieve the monies from them,’’ he said.

He told the court that some of the people were traced and they all confessed that Achema collected all the money back in less than 24 hours “to the last penny.’’

Such of this accounts were traced and all confessed to the police during investigations.

On his part, the prosecutor, Adeniyi Oyeyemi, also told the court that when the defendant learnt that his tricks had been discovered, he absconded from his duty post in NERC and switched off his phones and went into hiding.

Oyeyemi said that the case was reported to NYSC but all efforts to get Achema proved abortive until the day of the passing out parade when he got arrested and he confessed to the crime.

A copy of the confessional statement he wrote which contained his bio-data, where he promised to remit back the stolen amount was produced in court by the prosecutor.

The statement was signed by him and countersigned by the officer who testified in court.

Another document which contained the names of all the people he diverted the NERC monies to and the various amounts were also produced in court.

Although the defence counsel, Ilo Obiora, objected to both exhibits as being photocopies, his objection was overruled as the prosecutor was also with the originals.

Meanwhile, the presiding judge, Umar Kagarko, had adjourned the case until March 10 for cross-examination of the defendant.