COURT JAILS CULTIST, POLYTECHNIC LECTURER OVER N50M EXTORTION IN AKWA IBOM
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By Aishat Momoh. O.
The High Court of Akwa Ibom State, sitting in Ikot Ekpene, has sentenced a cultist, Innocent Ntokon, and a lecturer at Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, Abel Udo Jacob, to prison for their roles in a financial extortion scheme amounting to over N50 million.
Delivering judgment on Wednesday, Justice Augustine Odokwo found the defendants guilty of subjecting a local businessman, Edikan Jacob Jackson, to what he described as a “merciless extortion scheme” that led to the loss of more than ₦50 million and nearly crippled his family’s legacy business.
The prosecution established that between 2016 and 2020, Ntokon, identified as a leader of the Klans Confraternity, terrorised the victim through threats and intimidation. The court heard that armed enforcers were sent to the victim’s shops, while death threats were allegedly issued against his mother and sisters to compel monthly payments.
Abel Udo Jacob, a postgraduate degree holder in Engineering and lecturer at the polytechnic, was found to have acted as the financial conduit for the syndicate. The court dismissed his defence that he believed the funds passing through his account were proceeds from “NDDC roofing contracts,” describing the explanation as “totally not in accord with common sense.”
In a two-hour judgment, both convicts pleaded for leniency. However, the court held that the gravity of the psychological trauma inflicted on the victim must be weighed carefully. Justice Odokwo noted that the victim endured four years of psychological terror and reportedly lost his father partly due to financial strain caused by the extortion.
The judge described Ntokon as a “predator who used the cloak of a trader to hide the heart of a hardened and merciless cultist and extortionist.”
Ntokon was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment on counts of demanding with menace, stealing, terrorism and cultism. The lecturer received a maximum sentence of three years for demanding with menace, stealing and terrorism. The sentences are to run concurrently.
To ensure that “crime does not pay,” the court ordered the convicts to jointly and severally pay ₦25 million in restitution to the victim.
Additionally, a Toyota Avensis and a Mercedes-Benz identified as proceeds of the crime were ordered forfeited to the state for auction to provide partial restitution to the complainant.
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