MD, Maphutha Oil & Gas, Captain Haruna faces trial for alleged N1.02bn forex fraud

Stanley Ihedigbo

Kaduna Zonal Directorate, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Wednesday, November 5, 2025, arraigned one Captain Nuhu Haruna, Managing Director of Maphutha Oil & Gas Limited, before Justice Darius Khobo of the Kaduna State High Court, sitting in Kaduna State, for foreign exchange fraud.

He was arraigned on a two-count charge bordering on advance fee fraud and obtaining money under false pretence to the tune of N1.02 bn.

Count one of the charge reads: “That you, Nuhu Haruna (M) with NIN 45666600264 while being the Managing Director of Maphutha Oil & Gas Limited, sometime in December, 2023 at Kaduna within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, obtained the total sum of N782m, from one Alhaji Sheriff Zailani Shanono, when you claimed to be capable of providing him with the equivalent in United States Dollars and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(b) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

Count two reads: “That you Nuhu Haruna (M) with NIN 45666600264 while being the Managing Director of Maphutha Oil & Gas Limited, sometime in January, 2024 at Kaduna within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, obtained the total sum of N125m, from one Alhaji Sheriff Zailani Shanono, when you claimed to be capable of providing him with the equivalent in United States Dollars and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(b) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

He pleaded “not guilty” to the charges when they were read to him, following which the prosecution counsel, M.E. Eimonye, urged the court for a trial date, while the defence counsel, M.T. Mohammed, informed the court of the defendant’s bail application, already before the court.

Justice Khobo, after listening to both counsels, adjourned the case till November 19, 2025, for the hearing of the bail application and ordered that the defendant be remanded in a Correctional Centre.

Haruna was arrested following a petition from Shanono in which he alleged that he was introduced to the defendant sometime in December 2023, having claimed that he could provide him with a dollar equivalent of a sum of N1.02 bn, at two instalments of $600,000 and $400,000, each. Following the agreement, he alleged that he then provided the defendant with a foreign bank account into which he would pay the dollar sums and proceeded to transfer a total sum of N1,020,000,000 into accounts provided by the defendant.

The petitioner further claimed that shortly after his transfer of the sum, the defendant provided him with evidence of payment of the dollar equivalent he claimed to have made into his foreign bank account, only for him to discover that the payment evidence was not real, as the money never dropped.