The trial of Abiodun
Agbele, aide and confidant of Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, got
underway Thursday in Abuja with the first prosecution witness, providing a blow
by blow account of how the accused supervised the disbursement of a sum of N1,
219, 490,000 part of the N4.7billion that was transferred from the imprest
account of the Office of the National Security Adviser to the bank account of
Sylvan McNamara, a company allegedly owned by the sons of a former Minister of
State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro.
Agbele is facing an 11-count charge of
fraud before Justice Nnamdi
Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja allegedly
diverting N1.2billion from the office of the former National Security Adviser,
Sambo Dasuki.
At the commencement
of the trial today Alade Oluseye Sunday, a manager and Branch Head of the Zenith Bank, narrated how over N1.2 billion was disbursed on the instruction of
Agbele.
“I first met Agbele on June 17, 2014. On that
day, my zonal head, Abiodun Oshode, informed me
that he recieved a message from Lawrence Akande, the Zonal
Head of Oyo State Branch of Zenith Bank that a customer will be coming to the bank from
the airport with cash. He said that I should arrange for our bullion
van to be taken to the airport to convey the cash when it arrives.
“After about an hour, Oshode walked to me that the customer is in the
bank and I followed him to his office where he introduced Mr. Abiodun
Agbele to me as the customer. Agbele told me that they had security details and that I
should not bother about policemen since they had enough. That was how I, my Zonal Head, the bullion van
driver, Agbele and his team drove to the airport.
“When we got to the airport, we waited for some minutes before
the aircraft arrived. When the aircraft offloaded its
passengers, one of them appeared to me to be Senator
Musliu Obanikoro and the other one appeared to be his ADC, Adewale.
“Agbele walked up to them and had a dicsussion with them. Thereafter, he signaled me to bring the van. Bags loaded with cash were evacuted into the van and Obanikoro’s ADC, I and Agbele
drove back to the bank.
“When we got to the bank, we ‘bundle counted’ the cash and it was
N724,500,000. Agbele told us that more money was still
coming and then, Obanikoro’s ADC left for the airport immediately.
“In the evening, all of us left for the airport a second
time. After the passengers disembarked, we offloaded the cash bags into our bullion van and drove back
to the bank to ascertain how much the cash was. The second tranche was N494,990,000,
bringing the total about N1.219, 490,000
“We headed straight
to our zonal head office where instructions were given by Agbele on how the
funds were to be credited to various accounts.
“However, because of the amount involved, we needed to ‘detail count’
before crediting the accounts the next day. All these are recorded in the
statements I volunteered to the EFCC.
Thereafter, the
prosecuting counsel gave the PW1 the four statements he volunteered to the EFCC which he (PW1) identified. Three of the statemnets were made on June 2, 2016 while the other one was made
on July 4, 2016. They were all tendered and admitted as exhibit AA1A, AA1B, AA1C and AA1D
respectively.
Sunday, while reading from exhibit AA1B stated that, “N100million was credited to Spotless
Investments; N219.490million was credited to De
Privateer Limited; another N300million was credited to De
Privateer Limited; another N200million was credited to De
Privateer Llimited; N200million was also credited to De Privateer
Ltd; N137million was credited to Ayodele Fayose’s account and the balance
N263 million was taken by Abiodun Agbele to Ado Ekiti.
“The De Privateer Limited account is domiciled in the Ibadan branch of Zenith Bank. The Spotless Investments account is also domiciled in Ibadan branch of Zenith Bank too
while Ayodele Fayose’s account is domiciled in Zenith Bank Lagos branch”, he
stated.
Thereafter, Justice
Dimgba adjourned to November 14 and 17, 2016 for further hearing.
Wilson
Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity
27th October,
2016
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