The anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has declared a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ambassador Ayodele Oke and his wife, Folasade wanted for failing to appear in court to answer for the N13 billion fraud and money laundering charges against them. This was contained in a statement issued yesterday by the acting EFCC spokesman, Tony Orilade.
Oke and his wife had reportedly travelled out of the country for medical treatment in late January shortly before they were to be arraigned in court.
Justice Chukwujeku Aneke of a Federal High Court, Lagos, had on February 7, 2019 issued an arrest warrant for them, consequent upon an oral application by counsel for the EFCC, Rotimi Oyedepo.
Oke and his wife are wanted in connection with the $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 cash recovered by the EFCC from an apartment at Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, in April 2017. They are facing a four-count charge bordering on money laundering offence to the tune of N13 billion.
Under the former DG, the NIA was said to have collected $289,202,382 in cash for special operations from the account of the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in February 2015. The agency had claimed that the funds were meant for covert intelligence operations, but the federal government insisted it was a case of looting.
The federal government subsequently set up a three-man panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, which indicted Oke and recommended his dismissal. Criminal charges were subsequently filed against him and his wife in February this year over the cash found at the Ikoyi apartment.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Amb. Ayodele Oke and Mrs. Folasade Ayodele Oke between 25th day of August 2015 and 2nd day of September 2015 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this court directly converted $160,777,136.85 property of the Federal Government of Nigeria to your own use which sum you reasonably ought to have known formed part of proceeds of an unlawful act to wit: criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act 2012 and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act”.
