N8bn CBN fraud: EFCC faults defendant’s earlier testimony of never being indicted

EFCC (Depict Image)

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Thursday, said that Kolawole Babalola, defendant, in the mutilated eight billion naira CBN scam had earlier been indicted by an investigative panel.

Mr Adebisi Adeniyi, the EFCC counsel, dismissed the earlier testimony of Babalola during the cross-examination of the defendant standing trial before Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel of the Federal High Court in Ibadan.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Babalola had earlier informed the court that he was never indicted by any panel in the course of his duty as the head of the treasury unit at the Ibadan branch of CBN.

However, the EFCC counsel tendered some documents containing the report of one investigative panel that indicted the defendant in 2014.

According to Adeniyi, the report that indicted Babalola bordered on how the prequetting or money counting exercise where the defendant and the other accused persons allegedly shared N1000 and N500 denominations contained in the boxes respectively.

Babalola however, explained to the court that he did not understand the report of the investigative panel to be an indictment.

The judge consequently adjourned the suit until Nov. 9 and Nov. 10 for the continuation of the trial.

NAN reports that Babalola, Muniru Olaniran, Patience Okoro, Sunday Ilori, Samuel Ordia along with others have since 2015 been facing multiple charges bordering on conspiracy, unlawful conversion, stealing and recirculation of mutilated currency.

The offences were allegedly committed at the Ibadan banch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Ayo-Emmanuel urged all the parties in the matter to be proactive as the case was taking too long to conclude.

He added that a judge was not static, but often moves from place to place.

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