'It took 10 days to count the N1.2b cash Obanikoro brought for Fayose' - Bank manager confesses

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Monday, November 14, 2016, continued the examination of its first prosecution witness, Alade Oluseye Sunday, on a case of alleged fraud against Abiodun Agbele, an aide to the Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose, before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja.

According to a statement released by the agency, Alade, a manager and Branch Head of the Zenith Bank Plc., Akure, whose evidence started on Thursday, October 27, 2016, maintained that the sum of N1, 219,490,000 (one billion, two hundred and nineteen million, four hundred and ninety thousand naira) conveyed to the bank via two aircrafts were handed over to him by the first defendant (Agbele). He said; "The money was mostly in N1000 notes while the rest were in N500 notes. Agbele gave us the instruction to transfer the monies to different accounts. Some were paid into De Privateer Limited, some into Spotless investment limited while some where paid into Ayodele Fayose’s account”, Alade confessed.

The witness, while reading from exhibit AA1B stated that, N100million was credited to ‘Spotless Investments,’ N219.490million was credited to ‘De Privateer Limited’, another N300million was credited to ‘De Privateer Limited’, another N200million was credited to ‘De Privateer Limited’, N200million was also credited to ‘De Privateer Ltd’, N137million was credited to ‘Ayodele Fayose’s account’ while the balance N263 million was taken by Abiodun Agbele to Ado Ekiti. I saw Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, come down from the aircraft to speak with Agbele”, he said.

Under cross-examination by Agbele’s counsel, Mike Ozekome, Alade maintained that he had never met the first defendant and had never discussed any money matters with him prior to June 2014; “I got worried when I saw the huge amount of money conveyed by the aircrafts that day. It took us ten working days to count the money and each day, the uncounted sum is stored in the strong room as ‘boxed’ cash”, he said.
However, when asked whether he reported the transaction as suspicious to any authority, the witness, Mr. Alade, admitted that he did not because it was not his job to do so.

The case has been adjourned to November 17, 2016 for further hearing. Meanwhile, Agbele is facing an 11-count charge for allegedly diverting N4.6billion from the office of the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. Source: EFCC Official Facebook page.