N702M FRAUD: Court fixes date to hear Okupe’s application for foreign medical trip

The Federal High Court, Abuja presided over by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu has fixed March 6, 2020, to hear an application filed by the former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, seeking for an oversea medical trip.

Okupe is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alongside his two companies: Value Trust Investments and Abrahams Telecoms on a 59-count charge bordering on money laundering and criminal diversion of funds to the tune of N702 million.

The defence counsel, Akinlabi Akinbade, had on December 24, 2019 and February 11, 2020, filed two motions before the court requesting for the release of Okupe’s international passport to enable him travel to The United Kingdom for medical treatment and another application seeking the leave of the court to appeal against the dismissal its no case application.

The defence also presented its first witness, Oladayo Odunami Yewande, a legal practitioner and a confidential secretary to Okupe from August 2012 to May 2015, who told the court how they operated the office with N10million (Ten Million Naira), which was given to them monthly from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

But during cross-examination by the prosecution counsel, Ibrahim Audu, the witness denied ever collecting or receiving money from ONSA.

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One of the charges Okupe is facing is: “That you, Dr Doyin Okupe, being the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan from July 2012 to May 2015, and being the managing director, chief executive officer, and a signatory to the bank account of Abrahams Telecoms Ltd, on or about the 3rd October 2014 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, directly took possession or control of the sum of N35 million, transferred to the account of Abrahams Telecoms Ltd from the account of the Office of the National Security Adviser with the Central Bank of Nigeria, purporting to be for special services when you reasonably ought to have known that the said fund formed part of the proceeds of unlawful activity”.

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