The Akwa Ibom State High Court, Ikot Ekpene, has sentenced a lecturer at Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, Abel Udo Jacob, and his accomplice, Innocent Nicholas Ntokon, to a combined 11-year jail term for their involvement in a N50 million extortion scheme.
Delivering judgment on Wednesday, Augustine Odokwo held that the duo subjected a businessman, Edikan Jacob Jackson, to years of threats, intimidation, and financial exploitation that resulted in losses exceeding N50 million.
The court found that between 2016 and 2020, Ntokon, described as a leader of the Klans Confraternity, orchestrated a sustained campaign of terror against the victim by allegedly sending armed enforcers to his shops and issuing threats against members of his family to compel him to make monthly payments.
Jacob, the polytechnic lecturer, was found to have facilitated the scheme by acting as the financial clearing channel for the syndicate, allowing extorted funds to pass through his bank account.
In his defence, the lecturer claimed he believed the money paid into his account was related to roofing contracts linked to the Niger Delta Development Commission. However, the court dismissed the explanation as unreasonable and inconsistent with the evidence presented during the trial.
In a judgment that lasted about two hours, Justice Odokwo 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 charges bordering on demanding with menace, stealing, terrorism, and cultism, while Jacob received a three-year jail term for demanding with menace, stealing, and terrorism. The sentences are to run concurrently.
The court also ordered both convicts to jointly and severally pay N25 million as restitution to the victim, stressing that crime must not pay.
Additionally, a Toyota Avensis and a Mercedes-Benz, identified as proceeds of the crime, were ordered forfeited to the state and will be auctioned, with the proceeds serving as partial restitution to the complainant.
