N13bn concealed funds: Sacked DG NIA, wife absent in court

The sacked Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Ayodele Oke, and his wife, Folashade, who were billed to be arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Friday failed to appear in court.

Tribune Online recalls that the anti-graft agency had on Wednesday filed four charges against the Okes before the Federal High Court in Lagos.

They were scheduled to be arraigned on Friday before Justice C.J. Aneke in connection with the sums of  $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 (totalling N13bn) removed by the EFCC from Flat 7B Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos linked to them.

On Friday, however, the EFCC failed to produce them in court.

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The development necessitated the EFCC prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo, to ask court registrars to reschedule the arraignment till Wednesday, February 6.

In the charge sheet marked FHC/L/499/19 filed against them, the EFCC alleged that Oke and Folashade of “indirectly concealed the sum of $43,449, 947, property of the Federal Government of Nigeria in Flat 7B, No. 16, Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, which sum you reasonably ought to have known formed parts of proceeds of an unlawful act, to wit: criminal breach of trust.”

The Okes were alleged to have committed the crime on April 12, 2017, contrary to Section 15(2)(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2012.

In the second count, they were alleged to have between August 27, 2015, and September 2015 “indirectly used $1,658,000,” belonging to the Federal Government, contrary to the law.

In the third and fourth counts, the defendants were alleged to “directly retained the sum of $160,777,136.85,” belong to the Federal Government.