Court Bars Lagos Accounts Over Alleged N9.9bn Fraud

For an alleged N9.9 billion fraud, the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered the freezing of three accounts belonging to the Lagos State Government.

Making the order following an ex-parte application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Justice Chuka Obiozor ordered that the contentious accounts be suspended pending conclusion of investigation and possible prosecution of the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Adewale Adesanya.

The affected accounts are domiciled in Access Bank (0060949275), First City Monument Bank (5617984012) and Zenith Bank (1011691254).

An EFCC investigator, Kungmi Daniel, said in a supporting affidavit before the Court that the commission discovered huge inflow of N9,927,714,443.29 from the state accounts into the FCMB account.

Kungmi said the account, operated by Adesanya, was opened on September 17, 2018 under former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration.

He said investigators found that Adesanya and other signatories made fraudulent transfers from the state’s accounts and dissipated the funds.

According to the deponent, “The trend is that the account always witnessed huge inflow from Lagos State Government in the above scheduled accounts managed by the respondent (Adesanya).

“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.” 

Counsel to the anti-graft agency Mohammed Abbas urged the court to grant the temporary order attaching the accounts to enable the Commission conclude its investigations.

Justice Obiozor thereafter granted the EFCC’s prayers and adjourned the matter till Friday, August 10, 2019