A former Minister for Aviation, Femi Fani Kayode was on Monday rearraigned before Justice Rilwan Aikawa of a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos.
Fani Kayide was rearraigned alongside a former Minister of State for Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman; and one Danjuma Yusuf and a company, Joint Trust Dimensions Limited
Fani Kayode was re-arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over an alleged fraud of N4.9 billion.
The former minister and his co-defendants were facing trial before Justice Muslim Hassan of the same court before whom he was earlier arraigned on June 28, 2016.
According to the EFCC, the 17 counts charges the defendants are facing borders on conspiracy, unlawful retention of proceeds of theft and money laundering.
Fani-Kayode, who was at the time, tye Director of Publicity for ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign organisation for the 2015 election, was accused of conspiring with the others to, directly and indirectly, retain various sums, which the EFCC claimed they ought to have reasonably known were proceeds of crime.
In one of the counts, the defendants were accused of conspiring among themselves to indirectly retain the sum of N1,500, 000,000.00 which the EFCC said they should have known formed proceeds of crime.
The four were also accused of indirectly retaining N300m, N400m and N800m, all proceeds of corruption, according to EFCC.
EFCC said they allegedly committed the offence between January 8 and March 25, 2015, ahead of the 2015 general elections.
They all pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were rearraigned before the new trial judge on Monday.
Following a plea by Usman’s lawyer, Mr Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN), Justice Aikawa allowed them to continue on the bail earlier granted them by Justice Hassan.
The matter was adjourned till June 6 and 9 for the commencement of trial.
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