Alex Enumah in Abuja
Justice Jude Onwuzuruike of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Apo, Abuja, will on May 25, decide whether to grant bail to a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Skye Bank Plc, Tunde Ayeni, in his alleged corruption trial.
Justice Onwuzuruike fixed the date for his ruling yesterday, after taking arguments from lawyers representing parties in the case.
Ayeni is standing trial on a 17-count charge bothering on alleged N15.6 billion fraud, brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He however, pleaded not guilty to the entire counts in the charge.
Arguing the bail application, at the resumed trial, Ayeni’s lawyer, Dele Adesina, SAN, prayed the court to admit the applicant to bail, adding that the anti-graft agency had earlier granted the defendant an administrative bail.
He further submitted that the administrative bail was about to be perfected when the court at the last sitting gave a remand order.
Submitting that the offence the defendant was accused of was a bail-able offence, the senior lawyer stated that the defendant has a constitutional right of presumption of innocence until proven otherwise.
Responding, prosecution counsel, G.I Inde, opposed the application referencing the grounds listed in the prosecution’s counter affidavit dated and filed May 7.
“We also filed a further counter affidavit of 9 paragraphs deposed to by on Halimat Kabir an officer of EFCC. We relied on all deposition. We adopt the written address as our oral submission in praying your lordship to refuse the bail application,’’ Inde said.
After listening to both parties, Justice Jude Onwuzuruike adjourned till May 25 for ruling.
A similar criminal charge was instituted against Ayeni and one Timothy Oguntayo in 2019, in which they had pleaded not guilty to all the counts.
At the trial before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, Ayeni’s counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, had argued that the transactions under investigation by the EFCC were fundamentally commercial and banking transactions rather than criminal diversions of funds and in fact there was already an understanding between the bank and the duo for which the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was sought and obtained by the management of Skye bank.
Olanipekun at the trial then had submitted that the dispute “arose out of business transactions that went sour” and emphasised that the issues were amenable to amicable resolution.
He further maintained that the funds in question were not unlawfully diverted, but were part of legitimate banking transaction arrangements undertaken in the ordinary course of the bank’s operations.
The defence had also resisted the EFCC’s attempt to criminalise what it described as commercial decisions taken within the framework of legitimate banking business.
Subsequently, the parties agreed to settle the matter out of court and informed the court accordingly. At the final sitting, the terms of settlement reached by the parties were presented to the court which were the terms already approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria even before the commencement of the investigation by the EFCC.
Justice Ojukwu thereafter adopted the settlement terms as the judgment of the court, thereby bringing the matter to a formal conclusion.
