A Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday fixed Nov. 15, for adoption of addresses in the money laundering trial of a former Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji.
Justice Mohammed Liman fixed the date after defence counsel, Mr Dele Adesina (SAN), tendered a Certified True Copy (CTC) of a 2014 proceedings before a former trial judge, Justice Ibrahim Buba.
Ikuforiji is charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alongside his former Personal Assistant, Oyebode Atoyebi.
They are being tried before Liman on a 54-count charge bordering on N338.8 million laundering.
They, however, pleaded not guilty and were allowed to continue on bail granted them in 2012 when they were first arraigned.
Adesina, on Tuesday, tendered the CTC of past proceedings, through a subpoenaed witness, Mr Adewale Olatunji, a former Chief Accountant of the Assembly.
Prosecution counsel, Mr Ekene Iheanacho, did not oppose tendering of the document.
The court consequently admitted the CTC in evidence.
The court also admitted in evidence, Olatunji’s statement to the EFCC during investigations.
After admitting the exhibits, the court fixed Nov. 15 for adoption of written addresses.
The News Agency of Nigeria NAN) reports that on March 17, 2021, the EFCC closed its case after calling its second witness.
However, on May 4, defence counsel, Adesina opened the case for defence, and has called three witness, including the first defendant, Ikuforiji.
Ikuforiji testified that he was being prosecuted based on a faceless petition.
He told the court that the case arose from a petition written by an unknown person, alleging that he stole about seven billion Naira from Lagos House of Assembly.
The court had adjourned the case in order to take addresses on the admissibility of a documentary evidence tendered from the bar by defence counsel.
On Tuesday, the court admitted in evidence, the document as tendered by defence counsel, and reserved adoption of the addresses for Nov. 15.
NAN reports that the defendants were first arraigned on March 1, 2012, before Justice Okechukwu Okeke on a 20-count charge bordering on misappropriation and money laundering.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges, and were granted bail.
The defendants were re-arraigned before Justice Ibrahim Buba following re-assignment of the case.
Buba granted them bail in the sum of N500 million each with sureties in like sum.
On Sept. 26, 2014, Buba discharged Ikuforiji and his aide of the charges, after upholding a no-case submission by them.
Buba had held that EFCC failed to establish a prima-facie case against them.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, EFCC through its counsel, Mr Godwin Obla (SAN), filed the Notice of Appeal dated Sept. 30, 2014, challenging Buba’s decision.
Obla had argued that the trial court erred in law when it 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.
He further 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 government.
He also submitted that the trial judge erred in law when he held that testimonies of prosecution witnesses supported innocence of the respondents.
In its judgement, the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal, in November 2016, agreed with the prosecution and ordered a fresh trial of the defendants before another judge.
Following the decision of the Court of Appeal, the defendants headed for the Supreme Court, seeking to upturn the judgment.
In its verdict, the apex court also upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal and ordered that the case should be sent back to the chief judge of the Federal High Court for re-assignment to another judge.
The EFCC alleges that the defendants accepted cash payments above the threshold set by the Money Laundering Act.
The commission also accused the defendants of conspiring to accept cash payments in the aggregate sum of N338.8 million from the House of Assembly without going through a financial institution.
Ikuforiji was also accused of using his position as the Speaker to misappropriate funds belonging to the Assembly.
The EFCC said that the defendants committed the offences between April 2010 and July 2011.
The alleged offences contravene the provisions of Sections 15 (1d), 16(1d) and 18 of Money Laundering Act, 2004 and 2011.
