Alleged N600m fraud: How Lagos Speaker spent funds on foreign trips, wife – EFCC

Today EFCC on the 18th of March has revealed how the Lagos Speaker
Adeyemi Ikuforiji, squandered money on his wife, foreign
trips and how on August 1, 2011, N4.4m was paid to him
as "cost of allowance"; and his personal assistant and
orderly pocketed N1.2m and N1.1m respectively.
Vanguard reports,

LAGOS—The Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, EFCC, yesterday, admitted before a Federal
High Court sitting in Lagos, that Lagos State House of
Assembly Speaker, Mr. Adeyemi Ikuforiji never used any
of the funds he received from accounts department of
the House for any illegal activity.
This is apparently a twist, as the commission is
prosecuting Ikuforiji and his Special Assistant, Oyebode
Atoyebi on alleged money laundering charges.
An EFCC operative, Mr. Adebayo Adeniyi, who is the first
prosecution witness, under cross-examination, admitted
that the investigation of the commission never reveal
that the various cash payments, which Ikuforiji allegedly
received through Atoyebi from the Accounts Department
of the House was used for any criminal activity such as
terrorism, kidnapping, insider trading or market
manipulation, tax evasion, drug trafficking, hostage
taking, robbery, smuggling, sexual exploitation,
organisation of criminal group or racketeering.
Adeniyi, a Principal Detective Superintendent with EFCC,
had earlier told the court how various cash payments
were made to Ikuforiji through Atoyebi at the Accounts
Department of the Assembly.
He said the funds were withdrawn from the accounts of
Lagos State House of Assembly with Wema Bank and
Equitorial Trust Bank, ETB, which the Director of Finance
of the House and the Permanent Secretary were
signatories to, but that the eventual disbursement of the
cash to Atoyebi were not done through a financial
institution.
On whether the received funds were for official use of
members of the Assembly, the prosecution witness
answered in the affirmative, adding: "We did asked some
of the lawmakers and they admitted collecting the cash."
Adeniyi further said: "My Lord, from our investigation, we
discovered that the permanent secretary normally
withdraws the cash from the bank on behalf of the
Assembly in his name. We were also interested in seeing
how these funds were expended and our investigation
revealed the funds were paid to members of the
Assembly and their officials, but these cash payments
were above the threshold in which the permanent
secretary could transact on."

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.