Lagos Special Offences Court has sentenced former banker Christopher Jackson Edeh to a total of 39 years in prison for his involvement in a N2.7 billion fraud case prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The verdict, delivered on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, by Justice O. O. Abike-Fadipe of the Lagos State Special Offences Court in Ikeja, brought to a close a criminal trial that exposed how authorised access to banking systems and fraudulent accounting practices could be deployed to compromise high-value institutional accounts.
The charges involved the alleged alteration of bank account details belonging to customers and government-related entities, including the Kano State Government Power Intervention Fund, NNPC Trading Limited, the Lagos State Government Blue Line project and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University.
Edeh, who was prosecuted by the Lagos Zonal Directorote 1 of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), had been standing trial since February 28, 2024, when he was arraigned on 9 counts bordering false accounting and unauthorised access to a computer system.
According bto the anti-graft agency, the former banker manipulated the account details of several customers and government-related entities with the intention of perpetrating fraud.
The prosecution maintained that the alterations were deliberate and designed to facilitate fraudulent transactions involving funds entrusted to the banking system.
The court imposed five years’ imprisonment on each of the first seven counts and two years on each of the remaining two counts, with no option of a fine. However, all sentences are to run concurrently, meaning they will be served at the same time.
The conviction comes amid continuing concerns about insider-enabled financial crimes and the need for stronger internal controls, transaction monitoring and accountability within Nigeria’s banking sector.
-9News Nigeria.
