The Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday requested the freezing of three bank accounts purportedly having a place with the Lagos State Government over a claimed N9.9bn fraud.
The records domiciled in First City Monument Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank are numbered 5617984012, 0060949275 and 1011691254, individually.
Justice Chuka Obiozor requested the “suspension” of the accounts following an ex parte application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The EFCC had supplicated the judge to freeze the accounts pending the finish of investigations and possible prosecution of the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Chief of Staff to the Governor of Lagos State, Adewale Adesanya, for money laundering.
In an affidavit documented in help of the ex parte application, an individual from the EFCC investigating group, Kungmi Daniel, said the commission found “a tremendous inflow of N9,927,714,443.29” from the state accounts into an FCMB account opened on September 17, 2018 during the Akinwunmi Ambode organization worked by Adesanya.
Daniel said the calendar of the FCMB account demonstrated how Adesanya and different signatories to the record made fake exchanges from the accounts of the Lagos State Government and disseminated the funds in the said accounts.
“The trend in the account is that the account always witnessed a huge inflow from Lagos State Government into the above scheduled accounts managed by the respondent (Adesanya),” the investigator said.
He said upon the receipt of intelligenc , the EFCC broke down it and thought that it was deserving of investigation.
The EFCC prayed the court to give them an order to briefly assume control over the accounts to empower them to finish up their investigations.
The EFCC said, “There have been concerted efforts and attempts to dissipate the contents of the accounts listed in the schedule to this application.
“Without freezing the nominated accounts and temporarily forfeiting the money to the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, there is no way the fraud being perpetrated using the scheduled accounts can be stopped.”
In the wake of listening to the lawyer for the EFCC, Mohammed Abbas, Justice Obiozor granted their prayers..
He dismissed further procedures in the issue till September 9, 2019.
The EFCC later on Tuesday issued an announcement saying they had gotten a freezing order by the court on an account allegedly linked to Ambode.
The PUNCH had solely detailed in June that followers of the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, were dragging Ambode to the EFCC for investigations.
Representative for the EFCC, Tony Orilade, said in a statement titled, ‘EFCC Secures Freezing Order on Accounts Linked to Ex-Gov. Ambode over Alleged N9.9bn Fraud’, said Justice Obiozor of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Tuesday granted the freezing of the whole of N9.9bn having a place with the Lagos State Government.
The cash was domiciled in First City Monument Bank record number 5617984012; Access Bank record number 0060949275 and Zenith Bank record number 1011691254, individually, as indicated by the statement.
A source, in any case, let one know of the journalists that the records had nothing to do with Ambode.
“It is mischief. The bank accounts are not the former governor’s personal accounts; they belong to the Lagos State Government and were used by the previous and present administrations for state administrative purposes,” the source added.
Ex-Chief Press Secretary to Ambode, Habib Haruna, did not accept his calls, which rang out a few times.
An instant message mentioning his reaction to the charges was additionally not answered to as of the season of documenting this report.