N1.2bn

A former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigating officer, Abubakar Madaki on Monday told a Federal High Court in Lagos that former National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki, paid former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose N1.2 billion in cash disguise the source of the money.

Madaki informed the trial judge, Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke, that during the anti-graft agency‘s investigations into the money laundering charge, it was discovered the money was paid in cash to disguise the source of the funds and to avoid traces.

LEADERSHIP recalled that a former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, had earlier told the Judge that he was instructed by Dasuki to transfer N1.2 billion to Fayose from an account used as Boko Haram Special Intervention Account.

Obanikoro who testified as an EFCC witness in the ongoing trial of Fayose over an alleged N3.3 billion fraud, claimed that the N1.2 billion was initially transferred from the imprest account of the NSA into the particular intervention account.

Madaki had also informed the court that contrary to the statement made to the Commission by Fayose that the money was a campaign donation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the EFCC discovered that the fund was from the office of the National Security Adviser NSA and that it was budgeted for the purchase of security equipment.

The former governor, alongside his company, Spotless Investment Limited, faces an 11-count charge of criminal breach of trust, theft and stealing of public funds.

The anti-graft agency alleged that Fayose and one Abiodun Agbele, who is also standing trial on alleged money laundering offences before another division of the court, on June 17, 2014, took possession of N1.219 billion to fund his 2014 governorship campaign in Ekiti State.

He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

At the resumed hearing of the matter on Monday, Madaki, the 13th prosecution witness told the court that Fayose did not personally make any financial transactions relevant to the charge before the court.

Madaki, while being cross-examined by the second defence counsel, Olalekan Ojo (SAN), testified that there was no transaction relevant to the charge when the first defendant personally made it.

Defence counsel then asked the witness if he recalled telling the court that he did not witness any of the transactions in the case, and the witness replied, “I only said it was in the course of the investigation.”

On whether he acted based on facts in his investigation, the witness replied, “Yes, very well, my lord.”

The judge has adjourned the trial to July 19 to continue the trial.