The trial of former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, for an
alleged N2.2bn fraud started afresh on Monday, with the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission recalling its first witness.
The EFCC is recalling its witnesses, nearly a year after the
trial first opened before Justice Mojisola Olatoregun of the
Federal High Court in Lagos.
The anti-graft agency had already called 13 out of the 22
witnesses it listed in the case before the case file was withdrawn
from Justice Olatoregun in June and re-assigned to Justice C.J.
Aneke of the same court.
Fayose, alongside his company, Spotless Limited, is facing 11
counts bordering on criminal breach of trust, theft and money
laundering.
He pleaded not guilty.
At the Monday proceedings before Justice Aneke, an official of
Zenith Bank Plc, Lawrence Akande, testified as the EFCC’s first
witness.
Akande told the court that as a zonal head of his bank, he had a
relationship with Fayose and had “solicited his patronage”.
The banker said he knew the ex-governor to be someone of high
net worth through whom he could get sufficient deposit for his
bank.
“A man of low means does not become the governor of a state,”
the banker said under cross-examination by Fayose’s lawyer, Mr Ola
Olanipekun (SAN).
He told the court of an occasion in 2014 when Fayose allegedly
called him to pick up money for him at Akure Airport.
Justice Aneke adjourned further proceedings till Tuesday.
In the charges, the EFCC alleged, among others, that Fayose, on
June 17, 2014, “took possession of the sum of N1, 219, 000,000 to
fund your 2014 gubernatorial campaign in Ekiti State, which you
reasonably ought to have known formed part of the proceeds of an
unlawful act, to wit: criminal breach of trust/stealing.”
The ex-governor was also alleged to have on the same day
“received a cash payment of $5,000,000 from Senator Musiliu
Obanikoro, the then Minister of State for Defence, which sum
exceeded the amount authorised by law and you thereby committed an
offence contrary to sections 1 and 16(d) of the Money Laundering
(Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended) and punishable under Section
16 (2)(b) of the same Act.”
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