{"id":62879,"date":"2025-03-17T15:40:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=62879"},"modified":"2025-03-17T15:40:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:40:23","slug":"court-orders-arraignment-of-otudeko-onasanya-over-alleged-12-3-billion-naira-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/03\/17\/court-orders-arraignment-of-otudeko-onasanya-over-alleged-12-3-billion-naira-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Orders Arraignment of Otudeko, Onasanya Over Alleged 12.3 Billion Naira Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Federal High Court in Lagos has directed the arraignment of Oba Otudeko, former chairman of First Bank, and Bisi Onasanya, a former managing director, over an alleged 12.3 billion naira fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Aneke, delivering the ruling on Monday, emphasized that the defendants must be arraigned before any preliminary objections can be considered.<\/p>\n<p>He cited past legal precedents, stressing that no challenge to the charges can proceed until the accused enter their pleas.<\/p>\n<p>Wole Olanipekun (SAN), representing Otudeko, informed the court of ongoing settlement talks involving the Attorney General of the Federation.<\/p>\n<p>Other defense lawyers supported an adjournment to allow negotiations to continue, but the prosecution pressed for immediate arraignment or a report on settlement progress.<\/p>\n<p>The court adjourned the matter until May 8 for an update.<\/p>\n<p>The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed a 13-count charge against Otudeko, Onasanya, Soji Akintayo, and Anchorage Leisure Ltd., alleging fraudulent transactions amounting to 12.3 billion naira between 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adenike Lawal A Federal High Court in Lagos has directed the arraignment of Oba Otudeko, former chairman of First Bank, and Bisi Onasanya, a former managing director, over an alleged 12.3 billion naira fraud. Justice Aneke, delivering the ruling on Monday, emphasized that the defendants must be arraigned before any preliminary objections can be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":62880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1386],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-62879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62879","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62881,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62879\/revisions\/62881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}