A confident desire of an early bail for the eight bankers
accused of an N8 billion fraud was dashed yesterday for the second time. The
judge ordered that they should be returned to prison following failure by
counsel to complete service of processes on one another before arguments for
their bail could be taken.
Justice Adeyinka Faaj of the Federal
High Court, Ibadan took the action because prosecution and defence lawyers were
yet to receive all counter and further affidavits in the two cases to set the
stage for arguments for their bail applications.
They are to return to court on Thursday to
argue applications for bail after all processes are expected to have been
served on the counsel in the two cases heard yesterday.
Though the majority of defence counsel
indicated their willingness to proceed with pending applications as well as to
abandon their counter-affidavits to pave the way for argument for bail, Justice
Faaj insisted that arguments for all applications for bail must be taken
together.
He noted that hearing of some before others
could be prejudicial to the rest since the charges emanated from the same
transactions.
After the accused were arraigned last
Wednesday, affidavits and counter affidavits were prepared and sent on Thursday
and Friday. Consequently, the prosecution lawyers were only able to file their
replies in court on Friday and could not reach all the defence counsel the same
day. Some were only served in the courtroom yesterday.
The eight accused persons are among the 22
bankers being arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
They include six officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commercial
banks.
They were arraigned on a 28-count charge
bordering on forgery, misrepresentation and self-enrichment as part of the N8
billion mutilated currency fraud at the CBN.
The others are concealing of property,
fraudulently acquiring assets in excess of their legitimate and provable income
and causing economic adversity to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The accused, the court heard, acquired assets
in Nigeria and Pretoria, South Africa.
The CBN employees are Kolawole Babalola,
Olaniran Adeola and Togun Kayode Phillips. Their alleged accomplices are Isiaq
Akano, Ayodele Festus Adeyemi, Oyebamiji Hakeem, Ayodeji Alese and Ajiwe
Adegoke.
The EFCC, in the charge, claimed that the CBN
workers conspired with the First Bank employees to recycle N10 billion
mutilated currency notes meant to be destroyed.
The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Request for bail for the eight persons was brought to the court yesterday.
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