"These documents were held out by the Appellant and Brila Energy Ltd to be true and genuine, and presented to PPPRA to make a false claim for the payment of subsidy, Based on these false documents, as well as other documents attached to Exhibit P1, subsidy to the tune of over N900, 000.00 was paid to Brila Energy Ltd by PPPRA.
Thus, the elements of the offence of forgery of these documents were undoubtedly proved, see Alake v State (1991) 2 NWLR (pt. 205) 567; Babalola v State (1989) 4 NWLR (Pt. 115) 264 at 277. In the latter case, the Supreme Court, per Nnaemeka-Agu, JSC, expatiated on the nature of what constitutes forgery as follows: "The mere production of Exh. D1, which not only told a lie to wit: that it issued from an existing bank, but also told a lie about itself - that it was a genuine and duly issued bank draft - made it clearly a forgery under Section 399. For those were the constituents of intent to defraud. Also, the moment it was knowingly used to induce the Carpet Company to part with their eight rolls of carpet on the belief that Exhibit D1 was a genuine bank draft the element of intent to deceive was complete. So the two intents were present.
One [of them] would have been enough." (Emphases supplied). In the instant case, both the intent to deceive and the intent to defraud, as highlighted by the learned Jurist in the above decision, were established by the documents attached to the Exhibit P1; specifically the two documents purported to have emanated from Saybolt Concremat Brazil and these four documents purported to have been issued in purported confirmation that Inspectorate Marine Services Nig. Ltd carried out the inspection of the operation in respect of the ship to ship (STS) transfer from MT Overseas Limar to MT Delphina. Thus, the combined evidence from PW19 (an EFCC operative/investigator), PW17 (the Country Manager of the Saybolt Companies in Nigeria) and now PW5 (the representative of Inspectorate Marine Services Nig. Ltd) is to the effect that these documents tell a lie (being fake documents) and also tell lies about themselves (because the information contained therein is false).
The learned trial Judge was therefore on solid ground when she found that, even if the stamp of the Inspectorate on the documents was found to be genuine, as suggested by the Appellant, it was fraudulently impressed on the documents in issue (because the company itself knew nothing about the operations in question), in order to deceive the Federal Government of Nigeria into believing that there had been a trans-shipment of PMS imported from Brazil via the MT Overseas Limar into MT Delphina, as supervised and verified by Inspectorate Marine Services. This is the import of the decision of the Supreme Court in Nigeria Air force V Kamaldeen (2007) 7 NWLR (Pt. 1032) 164 at 191, per Musdapher, JSC (as he then was)
"The mere fact that the signatories on the cheque (including the respondent) are the normal persons designated to sign the cheque) does not make it genuine when right from the beginning there was intent to defraud. It has been held it is a forgery for a registrar of a Court to issue a writ to the effect that an order was made for the sale of a judgment debtor's property when no such order was made. See Etim V The Queen (1964) All NLR 38." See also Emu V State (1980) 2 NCR 297 at 303."
Per SANKEY, J.C.A. IN JUBRIL v. FRN CITATION: (2018) LPELR-43993(CA)
"It has also been argued by the Appellant that no evidence was adduced to prove that he forged the documents with his own hand and that the signatories of the documents were also not produced. It is the law that where a document was used as an intermediate step in the scheme of fraud in which the accused is involved, if it shown that such a document was false and was presented or uttered by an accused person in order to gain an advantage, an irresistible inference exist that either the accused forged the document with his own hand or procured someone to commit the forgery. It is immaterial who actually forged a document so long as an accused person is a party to the forgery. In Agwuna v AG Federation (1995) 5 NWLR (Pt. 396) 418, the Supreme Court held per Iguh, JSC as follows "It is certainly not the law that it is only the person who manually writes or signs a forged document that may be convicted for forgery of the document. The position of the law is that all persons who are participles criminis whether as principals in the first degree or as accessories before or after the fact to a crime are guilty of the offence and may be charged and convicted with [the] actual commission of the crime." (Emphasis supplied) See also Osondu v FRN (2000) 12 NWLR (pt. 682) 483; & Hassan v Queen (1959) SCNR 520 at 522."
Per SANKEY, J.C.A. IN JUBRIL v. FRN CITATION: (2018) LPELR-43993(CA)
