Ikoyi loot: EFCC slams $205.9m fraud charge against Ex-NIA DG Oke and Wife

LAGOS, Nigeria – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed 4-count fraud charge against former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ambassador Ayo Oke and his wife, Mrs. Folashade Ayodele Oke. They were alleged to have kept in their Ikoyi residence a total sum of $205.9 million, contrary to the Money Laundering Act.

The charge is coming over two months after Oke was suspended from office after his agency laid claim to the the sums of $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 recovered by the EFCC from Flat 7B, No. 16, Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Some of the counts against Oke and his wife reads as thus:
“That you Ambassador Ayodele Oke, Mrs. Folashade Ayodele Oke, on or about the 12th day of April, 2017 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court indirectly conceal the sum of $43,449,947.00, property of the Federal Government of Nigeria in Flat 7B, No. 16, Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of proceeds of unlawful act to wit: criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15 (2) (a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2012 and punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act. 

“That you you Ambassador Ayodele Oke and Mrs. Folashade Ayodele Oke, between 25th day of August, 2015 and 2nd day of September, 2015 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court indirectly used the sum of $1, 658, 000.00 property of the Federal Government of Nigeria to acquire Flat 7B, No. 16, Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of proceeds of unlawful act to wit: criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2012 and punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act. 

“That you Ambassador Ayodele Oke, between 25th day of August, 2015 and 2nd day of September, 2015 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court directly converted the sum of $160, 777, 136. 85, property of the Federal Government of Nigeria to your own use which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of proceeds of unlawful act to wit: criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2012 and punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act”.

The duo are expected to be arraigned before Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke on Friday 1st of February, 2019.