The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, on Thursday arraigned the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, Ishaq Kawu, before Justice Folashade Ogunbanjo-Giwa of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The commission had made several attempts to arraign Kawu and others before Thursday.
Kawu was arraigned alongside the Chairman of Pinnacle Communications Limited, Mr. Lucky Omoluwa, and the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Dipo Onifade, on allegation of misapplication of N2.5bn seed grant for ‘Digital Switch-over programme’ of the Federal Government.
The spokesperson for the ICPC, Rasheedat Okoduwa, in a statement on Thursday said that Kawu and others were facing 12 counts bordering on abuse of office, money laundering and misleading a public officer with the intent to defraud the Federal Government.
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The charge against them read in part, “That you, Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, Lucky Omoluwa and Dipo Onifade, sometime between December 2016 and May 2017, in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, conspired with one another to use the position of Ishaq Modibbo Kawu as the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission to confer corrupt advantage on Lucky Omoluwa, your friend and associate, by recommending to the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammed, to approve payment of N2.5bn to Pinnacle Communications Limited, a private company owned by Lucky Omoluwa as ‘Seed Grant’ under the Digital Switch-Over Programme of the Federal Government of Nigeria when you knew that the said company was not entitled to receive such grant, thereby committing an offence contrary to Section 26 (1) (C) and punishable under Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and other related offences Act, 2000.”
According to the statement, all the accused persons pleaded not guilty.
The trial judge, Ogunbanjo-Giwa, in her ruling, granted them bail in the sum of N100m each, with two sureties in like sum.
