The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Lagos Zonal office, on Wednesday re-arraigned a former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji alongside his former aide, Oyebode \u00a0Alade, before Justice Mohammad Liman of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on a 54-count charge bordering on conspiracy and \u00a0money laundering to the tune of\u00a0 N338.8 million.
\nOne of the counts reads: \u201cThat you, Rt. Honourable Adeyemi Sabit Ikuforiji and Oyebode Alade Atoyebi, sometime between April 2010 and July 2011 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable court, conspired among yourselves to do an illegal act to wit: accepting various cash payments amounting in the aggregate to the sum of N338, 801, 442 (Three Hundred and Thirty-Eight Million, Eight Hundred and One Thousand, Four Hundred and Forty Two Naira only) from the Lagos State House of Assembly without going through a financial institution and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 18 (a) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 and punishable under Section 16 (2) (b) of same Act.\u201d
\nThe defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge preferred against them by the EFCC.
\nIn view of their pleas, the prosecution counsel, Ekene Iheanacho, asked the court for a trial date and prayed the court to remand the defendants in the Correctional Centre, pending the outcome of the case.
\nCounsel to the defendants, Dele Adesina, SAN, prayed the court to allow the defendants to continue to enjoy the bail granted them by the former trial judge, Justice Ibrahim Buba.
\nHowever, in his response, the prosecution counsel, Iheanacho, told the court that the defence should have filed a fresh application for bail rather than relying on Justice Buba\u2019s ruling.
\nJustice Liman, after listening to both parties, held that \u201c the court will allow the defendants to continue to enjoy the bail granted to them by Justice Buba \u201d.
\nJustice Liman also gave 14 days to the sureties to the defendants to appear before the court before a pronouncement could be made regarding the \u00a0defendants\u2019 prayers for bail.
\nConsequently, Justice Liman adjourned the case\u00a0till February 9\u00a0and\u00a0March 5, 2020\u00a0for commencement of trial.
\nThe defendants were first arraigned on March 1, 2012 before Justice Okechukwu Okeke on a 20-count charge bordering on funds misappropriation and money laundering, to which they pleaded not guilty.
\nThe defendants were subsequently re-arraigned before Justice Ibrahim Buba, following a re-assignment of the case.
\nJustice Buba, on September 26, 2014, discharged the defendants of the charges, after upholding their no-case submission.
\nDissatisfied with the ruling, the EFCC filed a notice of appeal at the Appeal Court, Lagos Division, on September 30, 2014, challenging the decision of the trial court.
\nIn its appeal, the Commission submitted that the trial Judge erred in law when he held that the counts were incompetent because they were filed under Section 1(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004, which was repealed by an Act of 2011.
\nThe Commission also argued that the lower court erred in law when it held that the provisions of Section 1 of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004 and 2011, only applied to natural persons and corporate bodies other than the government.
\nThe Commission further submitted that the trial judge erred in law by holding that the testimonies of prosecution witnesses supported the innocence of the defendants.
\nThe Appellate Court, in its judgement sometime in November 2016, upheld the appeal and ordered a re-trial of the case before another judge.
\nIn view of this, the defendants approached the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the ruling of the Court of Appeal.
\nThe apex court, in its verdict, upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal and ordered that the case be sent back to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court for assignment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Lagos Zonal office, on Wednesday re-arraigned a former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji alongside his former aide, Oyebode \u00a0Alade, before Justice Mohammad Liman of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on a 54-count charge bordering on conspiracy and \u00a0money laundering to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[164,438,255],"class_list":["post-23007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-efcc","tag-ikuforiji","tag-money-laundering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23007","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=23007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}