The suspended Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, and three others are to be remanded in Kuje Correctional Facility over alleged N109.5 billion fraud, an FCT High Court ruled on Friday.
Other defendants in the case Nigerians have looked forward since it broke weeks ago are Olusegun Akindele, Mohammed Usman, and Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange Limited.
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) arraigned them on a 14-count charge of alleged misappropriation of N109.5 billion.
Justice O. Adeyemi Ajayi ordered the remand in the Kuje facility after the submission of all counsels in the matter, adjourning until July 27 for hearing in the bail applications.
Counsel to Idris, Chris Uche SAN prayed the court to allow the defendant to continue enjoying the administrative bail granted to him by the EFCC.
Uche added that the EFCC has the defendant’s international passport, and as such they should be allowed to come back on Monday to take their bail application.
EFCC’s counsel, Rotimi Jacobs SAN, thought otherwise, noting the administrative bail ended with the charging of the defendants.
According to him, allowing the defendants to go home after their arraignment, without hearing and determination of their formal bail applications, would send a wrong signal to the society.
“To ask them to go home without coming to argue the application for bail will send a wrong signal to the society that if a less important citizen is arraigned, such person would be made to suffer.
“Having filed the application, we need to react to what they said, especially on the issue that they were granted administrative bail and they complied to it”.
In her her ruling, the judge held that the court was not a puppet to dance to the rhythm of public opinions.
In apparent reference to the jailbreak in Kuje Prisons less than a month ago, Uche pleaded that his client should be remanded in the EFCC custody.
EFCC alleged that between February and December, 2021 Idris accepted from Olusegun Akindele, a gratification of N15,136,221,921.46 ( which sum was as a motive for accelerating the payment of 13% derivation to the nine (9) oil producing Sates in the Federation, through the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
It also alleged that N84,390,000,00 from the federal government’s account was converted by the first and second defendants between February and November 2021.
EFCC said the offence contravenes Section 155 and 315 of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
