At the commencement of the trial on
Thursday, the first prosecution witness, Mr. Adeniyi Adebayo, who is an
EFCC investigator, said the cash transactions were above the threshold
prescribed by the Money Laundering Act.
Both Ikuforiji and Atoyebi are being
prosecuted by the EFCC for 54 counts of allegedly receiving over N600m
from the Lagos State House of Assembly without passing through a
financial institution between April 2010 and July 2011.
The EFCC said the alleged offence contravened Section 18 (a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011.
Adebayo, who was led in evidence by EFCC
counsel, Chief Godwin Obla (SAN), said the anti-graft agency in June
2011 received a petition which “was a complaint of siphoning of public
funds against the first accused person (Ikuforiji).”
The witness, upon being asked by Obla,
told the court, presided over by Justice Ibrahim Buba, that
investigation conducted by his team, revealed that “57 cash
transactions” were involved in the charges.
He said, “We received documents from the
Lagos State House of Assembly – Cash Release Registers. On analysing
the documents, we discovered that various amounts of money were released
to the second accused person (Atoyebi) on behalf of the first accused
person (Ikuforiji).
“On further analysis of these documents,
we also discovered that the cash releases were above the stated
threshold in the Money Laundering Act.”
He said Atoyebi received the cash payments on all the 57 occassions on behalf of the Speaker.
He said when confronted with the
allegation, the Speaker, Atoyebi and other concerned members and
personnel of the House of Assembly admitted in their various statements
to the EFCC that the cash transactions actually took place.
Upon an instruction from Obla, Atoyebi
read a portion of a statement dated October 28, 2011 credited to
Ikuforiji, who was quoted to have confirmed that Atoyebi “properly
delivered” the money to him.
The matter was adjourned till December 2.
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