Mrs. Obiageli Anachebe alias Odiuko and her alleged fraudster partner and fake spiritualist, Innocent Chukwu, alias Ohamadike were recently re-arraigned at an Ikeja High Court for defrauding a business woman, Chief Vivian Amadife the sum of N97 million and a property worth N35m.
Odiuko and Ohamadike were first arraigned before Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of the Ikeja High Court, Lagos, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly defrauding their victim of the huge sum of money and property under the guise of performing spiritual cleansing on her and her entire family.
Both suspects were arraigned on five count charge.
Odiuko, whom the prosecution counsel accused of jumping bail, forging and obtaining another international passport, after the EFCC confiscated her first travelling document, was granted bail with the sum of N2.5m.
As at the time of filing this report, Anachebe was still remanded at the female wing of Kirikiri Prisons, for failing to meet her bail conditions.
The court also told Anachebe, the owner of Rancco Water, Enugu to provide two sureties in like sum, who are also resident in Lagos and must show evidence of tax payments in the last three years, before she would be allowed to go home.
Anachebe, who wore a POP on her neck, was brought to the court in a mini Prison bus looking distraught and embattled.
When the matter came up again for second hearing on October 14, Justice Ipaye refused to grant the bail application of Ohamadike, the first accused.
Ohamadike, the notorious founder of Esoteric World Discovery Limited, was remanded at the same Kirikiri Prisons, pending when the case comes up again for full trial on October 28.
Meanwhile, a mild drama ensued in the court premises when the female and another armed male warder attached to Obiageli Anachebe aka Odiuko, refused some journalists covering the case from taking photographs of the suspect.
All efforts to get her picture and that of Ohamadike proved abortive as the tough talking warders threatened to deal decisively with any journalist who dares take their photographs without a written permission from the top echelon of the Nigerian Prison Services.
According to the anti-graft agency, Chukwu, alias Dr. Ohamadike, and Anachebe alias Odiuko, first collected N50million from the businesswoman, Mrs. Vivian Amadife, with the promise that the money would be used to solve all her problems spiritually, a claim the prosecution said the accused knew was false.
The prosecution said the accused committed the offence between October and December 2013, in Lagos.
According to the charge suit number ID/1332c/2015, it stated that the accused conspired to ‘obtain money by false pretences, stealing by fraudulent conversion and concealment of deed.
The offences, according to the Commission, contravened Section 8(a) and 1(3) of the Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act No. 14 of 2006 and Sections 285(9)(c) and 288 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
The charge further alleged that Chukwu, on ‘or about February 14, 2014, dishonestly converted another sum of N16.9 million property of Amadife and Pamela Ihediwa of Bluebeam Capital Ltd, Lagos.
He was accused to have ‘obtained the sum by claiming to have for sale, a United States dollar equivalent of the N16.9m which representation he knew to be false and dishonest.
It added that between October and December 2013, Chukwu also fraudulently and dishonestly obtained and concealed the title documents to a building valued at N35 million at No. 4, Nteje Street, New Haven, Enugu, property of Amadife.
The matter was adjourned till October 28, for full trial of the accused to start.