{"id":28960,"date":"2024-04-25T13:44:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T13:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=28960"},"modified":"2024-04-25T13:44:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T13:44:47","slug":"alleged-money-laundering-judges-absence-stalls-fayoses-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2024\/04\/25\/alleged-money-laundering-judges-absence-stalls-fayoses-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged money laundering: Judge\u2019s absence stalls Fayose\u2019s trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">The absence of Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke in the alleged money laundering trial of a former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, stalled the proceeding on Thursday at the Federal High Court in Lagos. Justice Aneke was said to be on an official assignment, resulting in the adjournment of the continuation of the trial until July 1.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">Recall that Fayose is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for alleged N6.9 billion fraud and money laundering.<a name=\"more\"><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">He was first arraigned on October 22, 2018, before Justice Mojisola Olatotegun, alongside his company, Spotless Investment Ltd, on 11 counts bordering on fraud and money laundering offences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">Fayose had pleaded not guilty to the charges and was granted bail on October 24, 2018, in the sum of N50 million with sureties in like sum.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white; margin-bottom: 1rem;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">The defendant was re-arraigned before Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke on July 2, 2019, after the case was withdrawn from Justice Olatoregun, following the EFCC\u2019s petition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">He had also pleaded not guilty to the charges and was allowed to continue on the earlier bail granted, while the case was adjourned for trial.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">The anti-graft agency has since opened its case before Justice Aneke and is still leading witnesses in evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white; margin-bottom: 1rem;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">According to the charge, on June 17, 2014, Fayose and one Abiodun Agbele were said to have taken possession of the sum of N1.2 billion for purposes of funding his gubernatorial election campaign in Ekiti, which they reasonably ought to have known formed part of crime proceeds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white; margin-bottom: 1rem;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">Fayose was alleged to have received a cash payment of $5 million from the then Minister of State for Defence, Sen. Musiliu Obanikoro, without going through any financial institution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white; margin-bottom: 1rem;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">He was also alleged to have used the sum of N200 million to acquire a property in Abuja, in the name of his elder sister Moji Oladeji, which sum he ought to know also forms crime proceeds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white; margin-bottom: 1rem;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Quando',serif; color: #212121;\">The offences contravene the provisions of sections 15(1), 15 (2), 15 (3), 16(2)(b), 16 (d), and 18 (c) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white; margin: 0in 0in 12.0pt 0in;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Segoe UI',sans-serif; color: #2b2b2b;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The absence of Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke in the alleged money laundering trial of a former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, stalled the proceeding on Thursday at the Federal High Court in Lagos. Justice Aneke was said to be on an official assignment, resulting in the adjournment of the continuation of the trial until July [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":28962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[868],"class_list":["post-28960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fayose"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28989,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28960\/revisions\/28989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}