The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on March 6, 2019, arraigned Tunde Ayeni, a former Chairman, Board of Directors, Skye Bank Plc, before Justice Valentine Ashi of a Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Apo on a four-count charge, bordering on criminal breach of trust to the tune of N4,597,500,000.
\nAyeni was arraigned along with Timothy Ajani Oguntayo, for allegedly conspiring at different times to fraudulently divert depositors\u2019 funds domiciled at Skye Bank Plc to personal use.
\nOne of the counts reads: \u201cThat you, Tunde Ayeni, whilst being the Chairman, Board of Directors of the defunct Skye Bank Plc and Timothy Ajani Oguntayo, while being the Managing Director, MD of the defunct Skye Bank Plc on or about October 16, 2014 at Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, whilst being bankers entrusted with property, to wit: depositors\u2019 funds in the defunct Skye Bank Plc\u2019s Suspense Account, committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the sum of N1,000,000,000 (One Billion Naira) and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 315 of the Penal Code.\u201d
\nThey pleaded \u201cnot guilty\u201d to the charges.
\nCounsel for the first defendant, Dele Adesina, SAN, who held brief for the lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, informed the court of their pending bail application, which was served on the prosecution on December 13, 2018.
\nCounsel for the second defendant, Oyetola Oshobi, SAN, also made similar application.
\nThe trial judge, thereafter, admitted them to bail in the sum of N500 million (Five Hundred Million Naira) with two sureties each in like sum, who must be resident in Abuja, and must own a landed property \u201cof sufficient value\u201d, within Abuja metropolis.
\nThe matter was thereafter adjourned to May 14, 2019, for \u201ccommencement of trial\u201d.
\nIn another development, in a statement from the EFCC, Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos has dismissed an application filed by a former Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Jumoke Akinjide and her co-defendants in an alleged N650 million fraud case.
\nAkinjide is standing trial along with Senator Ayo Adeseun and a People\u2019s Democratic Party, PDP stalwart, Chief Olanrewaju Otiti, on an amended 24-count charge bordering on money laundering.
\nAt the last adjourned sitting on February 6, 2019, Micheal F. Lana, counsel for Adeseun, as well as Akinola Oladeji, counsel for Otiti, had brought an application before the court seeking that the Judge should disqualify himself from the trial on the grounds that he was a former employee of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and would, therefore, be biased.
\nRuling on the application today, March 6, 2019 Justice Hassan held that the application was frivolous and an abuse of court process.
\nHe said: \u201cThe allegation of me being biased in the case due to the fact that I was an employee of the Commission is meant to blackmail me and to intimidate the court.
\n\u201cBut this will not be allowed by any litigant.
\n\u201cBy the time the Commission commenced investigations regarding this case and when defendants were arrested, I had been appointed as a judge and I was no more with the EFCC as an employee.
\n\u201cTherefore, I see no conflict or interest of the court in this matter.\u201d
\nThe case has been adjourned to April 18, 2019 for continuation of trial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on March 6, 2019, arraigned Tunde Ayeni, a former Chairman, Board of Directors, Skye Bank Plc, before Justice Valentine Ashi of a Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Apo on a four-count charge, bordering on criminal breach of trust to the tune of N4,597,500,000. Ayeni was arraigned along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}