A former head of
Zenith Bank branch in Akure, Ondo State, Sunday Alade, told the Federal High
Court in Lagos on Wednesday, October 23rd that it took 10 days to count the
N1.2bn delivered to the bank in June 2014 by Abiodun Agbele, an ally of former
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State.
Alade was in court to
testify against Fayose, who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission for an alleged fraud of N2.2bn. Alade, who was fielding
questions from the EFCC lawyer, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), narrated to Justice C.J.
Aneke, how the N1.2bn was allegedly evacuated from two aircraft and taken in
two trips in a bullion van to the bank for lodgment as instructed by Agbele.
He said, “When the
aircraft arrived, three individuals disembarked from it, two of them walked
away while the third person walked to Abiodun Agbele. After a short
interaction, we were left to offload the cash from the aircraft.
“One Adewale O who
introduced himself as the orderly to Senator Obanikoro led us to offload the
cash. When we got to the branch, we bundle-counted the cash and it was about
N744m.
“We were told there
was a balance and we went back to the airport to pick the second batch from the
aircraft into our bullion van. The second tranche was about N494m, making a
total of N1.2bn. The money was detail-counted by the Cash and Teller Unit for
10 days before it was credited into three different accounts.”
A senior official of
the Central Bank of Nigeria, Aliu Mohammed, who also testified against Fayose,
told the court how N2.2bn was allegedly transferred from the operational
account of former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, to the Diamond
bank’s account of a firm, Sylva Mcmanara.
Justice Aneke
adjourned till Friday, October 25th for further proceedings.
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