Former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, shared his harrowing experience of facing a prolonged legal battle spanning over 12 years. Ikuforiji was entangled in a case involving N338.8 million fraud charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).<\/p>\n
Ikuforiji expressed immense relief and joy following his acquittal by the Federal High Court in Lagos on Monday. The court cleared him of all 54 counts of money laundering charges levied by the EFCC. His former personal assistant, Oyebode Atoyebi, who faced similar charges, was also acquitted.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the ordeal, Ikuforiji narrated his experiences to reporters in Ikeja, Lagos. “I am a very happy man. My joy knows no bounds. It has been almost 48 hours now since the judgement was delivered. I am extremely grateful to God,” he said.<\/p>\n
He further described the past 12 and a half years as a period of significant distress. “To have gone through this for 12 and a half years was a harrowing experience. I accept what Allah decreed, but there is something as a man in flesh, you ask a second question: God is there, and why did I have to go through this?” he pondered.<\/p>\n
Ikuforiji recounted his tenure at the Lagos State House of Assembly, where he served for 12 years, including 10 years as Speaker. During his time in office, the Assembly enjoyed harmonious relationships and passed significant legislation, including the Freedom of Information Act. “For 10 years, I was Speaker. There was no time for the lawmakers to fight; the Lagos House was the best because of the harmonious relationship,” he noted.<\/p>\n
Despite his contributions, Ikuforiji lamented the wrongful allegations that led to his prolonged legal struggle. “I suffered unnecessarily for that period; what was my offence, and what did I do? A faceless petitioner wrote that the House arm-twisted the Lagos State government to pay N500 million, and later, I was accused of embezzling N7 billion, which I allegedly made away with N500 million for 14 months,” he explained.<\/p>\n
Recounting the beginning of his ordeal, Ikuforiji recalled receiving a call from the director of the EFCC while he was preparing to embark on Umrah. He informed the director of his trip and promised to report to the office upon his return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, shared his harrowing experience of facing a prolonged legal battle spanning over 12 years. Ikuforiji was entangled in a case involving N338.8 million fraud charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Ikuforiji expressed immense relief and joy following his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":36521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[223,59],"class_list":["post-36518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-efcc","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36518","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=36518"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36536,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36518\/revisions\/36536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}