A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has sentenced the Managing Director of Integrated Microfinance Bank Limited, Simon Akinteye, to 32 years imprisonment over $166 million fraud. Trial judge, Justice Cecilia Olatoregun, sentenced the banker after his lawyer, A. O. Sherrif, had pleaded with the judge to temper justice with mercy. Justice Olatoregun had, on February 4, convicted Akinteye on the eight counts charge levelled against him by the office of Directorate of Public Prosecution, DPP, of the Federal Ministry of Justice.
The court, meanwhile, acquitted and discharged his deputy, Gabriel Adepoju, who was accused of withdrawing N22.250 million from the bank and diverted same to a limited liability company, Gad Press Limited. Sentencing the banker, Justice Olatoregun said: “I have listened to the allocutor. The convict misplaced the trust reposed in him by depositors. “Others must be deterred from throwing caution into the wind when saddled with the position of trust, particularly in handling people’s money or asset.” Consequently, the judge sentenced the banker to four years on each of the charges.
The court, however, gave the convict a fine of N2 million on each of the charges. The judge also ordered that while the terms of sentence will run concurrently, the option of fine are to be cumulative. The DPP had alleged, among others, that the two bank chiefs recklessly, without collateral, approved credit facilities of $166 million and N33.250 million to themselves and one Mrs. Temitope Imam.
