EFCC to arraign Ajudua for defrauding Bamaiyi of $8.3m

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will on February 12, 2014 arraign the serial fraudster, Fred Ajudua, before an Ikeja High Court over fresh charges of defrauding a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-General Ishaya Bamaiyi (rtd) of $8.395million.

EFCC in a fresh charge dated October 14, 2013, alleged that Ajudua, along with others still at large, had committed the crime between November 2004 and June 2005. Ajudua and Charles Orie are already being prosecuted since 2003 by the EFCC for allegedly defrauding two Dutch businessmen, Remy Cina and Pierre Vijgen, of US$1.69 million (about N270 million).

The anti-graft commission has instituted a 13 count charge of conspiracy and fraud against Ajudua. Ajudua is the only defendant in the fresh charge as others who allegedly committed the offences along with him are said to be at large. Other suspects, who were said to be on the run, are Alumile Adedeji (a.k.a Ade Bendel) and one Mr. Kenneth and Princess Hamabon William.

Ajudua, along with other suspects, were said to have defrauded Bamaiyi at the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, where he and the other fraud suspects were on remand for various crimes. EFCC claimed that the suspects had fraudulently collected the money from Bamaiyi in parts, falsely claiming that the payments represented the professional fees charged by Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) to handle Bamaiyi’s case in court and to facilitate his release from prison.

The anti-graft agency also alleged that Ajudua and others fraudulently claimed that $1 million out of the total money collected from Bamaiyi was for financial assistance for the treatment of Justice Olubunmi Oyewole’s father. Justice Oyewole was then presiding over Bamaiyi’s case in court.

The suspects were said to have told Bamaiyi that Oyewole’s father was admitted at Saint Nicholas in Lagos and that the $1 million was meant to assist the judge in treating his father. The arraignment earlier scheduled to come up before Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye, failed yesterday as Ajudua was absent from court.