Zenith Bank manager: We spent 10 days counting the N1.2bn Dasuki gave Fayose

Oluseye Sunday, a manager of  a branch of Zenith Bank Plc in Akure, Ondo state, on Monday, said it took 10 days to count the N1.2bn Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser (NSA), allegedly gave to Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state.

Testifying against Abiodun Agbele, Fayose’s aide, before Nnamdi Dimgba, justice of the federal high court, Sunday, a witness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), claimed that the sum of N1,219,490,000, which was conveyed by two aircraft, was handed over to him by Agbele.

“The money was mostly in N1000 notes while the rest were in N500 bills. Agbele gave us the instruction to transfer the monies to different accounts,” he said.

“Some were paid into De Privateer Limited, some into Spotless Investment Limited, while some were paid into Ayodele Fayose’s account”, Sunday maintained.”

While reading from exhibit AA1B, the witness gave the breakdown of how the money was allegedly distributed.

“N100m was credited to Spotless Investments; N219.490m was credited to De Privateer Limited; another N300m was credited to De Privateer Limited; another N200m was credited to De Privateer Limited; N200m was also credited to De Privateer Ltd; N137m was credited to Ayodele Fayose’s account and the balance N263 million was taken by Abiodun Agbele to Ado Ekiti,” he said.

“I saw Senator Musiliu Obanikoro come down from the aircraft to speak with Agbele.”

Under cross-examination by Mike Ozekhome, Agbele’s counsel, Sunday said he had never met the first defendant and had never discussed any money matters with him prior to June 2014.

“I got worried when I saw the huge amount of money conveyed by the aircraft that day. It took us 10 working days to count the money and each day, the uncounted sum is stored in the strong room as ‘boxed’ cash,” said Sunday.

Asked whether he reported the transaction as suspicious to any authority, the witness said he did not because it was not his job to do so.

The case was adjourned to Thursday for further hearing.

Agbele is facing an 11-count charge for allegedly diverting N4.6bn from the office of Dasuki.