Alleged N8b currency fraud: Court returns eight accused persons to prison

Hope of an early bail for the eight bankers accused of an N8 billion fraud was dashed yesterday for the second time.

The judge ordered that they should be returned to prison following failure by counsel to complete service of processes on one another before arguments for their bail could be taken.

Justice Adeyinka Faaj  of the   Federal High Court, Ibadan took the action because prosecution and defence lawyers were yet to receive all counter and further affidavits in the two cases to set the stage for arguments for their bail applications.

They are to return to court on Thursday to argue applications for bail after all processes are expected to have been served on the counsel in the two cases heard yesterday.

The accused persons were disappointed.

Though the majority of defence counsel indicated their willingness to proceed with pending applications as well as to abandon their counter-affidavits to pave the way for argument for bail, Justice Faaj insisted that arguments for all applications for bail must be taken together.

He noted that hearing of some before others could be prejudicial to the rest since the charges emanated from the same transactions.

After the accused were arraigned last Wednesday, affidavits and counter affidavits were prepared and sent on Thursday and Friday. Consequently, the prosecution lawyers were only able to file their replies in court on Friday and could not reach all the defence counsel the same day. Some were only served in the courtroom yesterday.

The eight accused persons are among the 22 bankers being arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). They include six officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commercial banks.

They were arraigned on a 28-count charge bordering on forgery, misrepresentation and self-enrichment as part of the N8 billion mutilated currency fraud at the CBN.

The others are concealing of property, fraudulently acquiring assets in excess of their legitimate and provable income and causing economic adversity to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The accused, the court heard, acquired assets in Nigeria and Pretoria, South Africa.

The CBN employees are Kolawole Babalola, Olaniran Adeola and Togun Kayode Phillips. Their alleged accomplices are Isiaq Akano, Ayodele Festus Adeyemi, Oyebamiji Hakeem, Ayodeji Alese and Ajiwe Adegoke.

The EFCC, in the charge, claimed that the CBN workers conspired with the First Bank employees to recycle N10 billion mutilated currency notes meant to be destroyed.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. Request for bail for the eight persons was brought to the court yesterday.

Explaining the situation for delay of bail hearing in an interview with reporters, Mr. Nathaniel Oke (SAN), counsel to Isiak Akano, said: “The order of the court last week was that all processes in the case should be served by Friday.

“But some parties were served late, which necessitated further reaction. And some came to court this morning for the purpose of filing additional processes, which have not been served on one another.

“Before we can go on, all the processes must have been received so that parties can have ample opportunity of either reacting or not reacting. You cannot react to what you did not see.

“So, it was on that basis that the matter was adjourned till Thursday. By then, all parties will have been in possession of documents to be used against one another.”

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