Judge orders EFCC to close case in trial of ex-Lagos Speaker, Ikuforiji

Justice Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court, Lagos has ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to close its case on the next adjourned date in the money laundering trial of a former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, and his former aide, Oyebode Atoyebi,

At the reopening of trial on Wednesday, the prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, Ekene Iheanacho, said he has only two witnesses to present.

Ikuforji and Atoyebi trial re-opened on Wednesday with an EFCC investigating officer, Niyi Adebayo, testifying as the first witness.

While being led in evidence by the prosecutor, Adebayo told the court that the charges against Ikuforiji and Atoyebi stemmed from a petition received by the EFCC in June 2011, alleging that the ex-Speaker siphoned N500m monthly from the coffers of the Lagos State House of Assembly.

According to him, in the course of investigation, the EFCC visited the Assembly and recovered relevant documents from the office of the Clerk.

He said: “We recovered some payment register and when we went through them, we discovered that a lot of cash payments were made to the second defendant, and we invited him to explain why the payments were made to him.

“He told us that the payments were meant for the first defendant, and when we interrogated the first defendant, he actually confirmed that the second defendant was collecting the money for him.”

Read also: Former Lagos Speaker, Ikuforiji to be re-arraigned Dec 11

Adebayo further said that the cash payments made to Atoyebi were above the threshold allowed by the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act.

Reading from exhibits before the court, the investigator said: “On April 27, 2010, N10m was collected in cash by the second defendant, while on May 6, 2010, the cash sum of N1.7m was also collected by the second defendant on behalf of the first.”

Justice Liman adjourned further proceedings till October 14, stressing that the prosecution must bring their second witness and close their case that day.

Ikuforiji and Atoyebi were re-arraigned by the EFCC in December last year on amended 54 counts bordering on alleged diversion and laundering of N388m belonging to the Lagos State House of Assembly.

Their re-arraignment before Justice Liman came about five years after they were discharged of the offence by Justice Ibrahim Buba of the same court in 2014.

The EFCC however approached the Court of Appeal, where the judgment of the lower court was overturned. The former Speaker however approached the Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeal, ordering the case to be returned to another judge of the Federal High Court.

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