An oil marketer, Oluwaseun Ogunbambo has asked a Lagos High Court in Ikeja, to vacate its order granted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to seize his assets.<\/p>\n
Ogunbambo, who is facing three separate fraud charges involving N5.9 billion, made the request in an application filed before the court by his counsel, Mr Adebayo Adenipekun (SAN).<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that Justice Adeniyi Onigbanjo had on Feb. 14, granted an order for an interim forfeiture of his assets, pending the conclusion of the cases.<\/p>\n
The affected assets are Ogunbambo’s bank accounts with First Bank of Nigeria, Unity Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc, containing undisclosed amounts of monies.<\/p>\n
It also included his account with FBN (UK) Ltd. allegedly having one million pounds to its credit and a landed property at No. 2 Olamijuyin Avenue, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos.<\/p>\n
Moving the forfeiture application, EFCC counsel, Mr Francis Usani, had told the court that Ogunbambo was planning to liquidate his assets.<\/p>\n
Usani had said:”The money in the respondent’s (Ogunbambo) various accounts is suspected to be proceeds of all the offences for which he is standing trial.<\/p>\n
“If the respondent is allowed to move the said sums, it will be practically impossible for the applicant (EFCC) to trace the money”.<\/p>\n
He had, therefore, urged the court to order an interim forfeiture of Ogunbambo’s property and assets to the Federal Government of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
But in the motion of notice dated Feb. 18, Adenipekun accused the EFCC of deliberately misleading the court by misrepresentation of facts.<\/p>\n
Adenipekun said the forfeiture application was brought under the EFCC Act, whereas his client was charged to court under the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act.<\/p>\n
He further argued that Section 29 of the EFCC had been declared null and void by the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n
Adenipekun, therefore urged the court to vacate the forfeiture order in the interest of justice and fair hearing.<\/p>\n
No date has been fixed for ruling on the application.<\/p>\n
NAN recalls that Ogunbambo is facing two separate fuel subsidy fraud charges before the judge who granted the forfeiture order.<\/p>\n
The EFCC alleged that he had conspired with one Habila Theck to defraud the Federal Government of Nigeria of the sum of N976.7 million under the fuel subsidy scheme.<\/p>\n
He was also charged for conspiring with Mamman Ali, Christian Taylor and Nasaman Oil Services to fraudulently obtain N4.5 billion fuel subsidy payment.<\/p>\n
The oil marketer is also facing another charge before Justice Olabisi Akinlade for allegedly obtaining a N430 million loan facility from Stanbic IBTC Bank, using forged documents. (NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An oil marketer, Oluwaseun Ogunbambo has asked a Lagos High Court in Ikeja, to vacate its order granted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to seize his assets.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n