Alleged fraudster, Fred Ajudua, who is currently in a legal battle over allegations of defrauding former chief of army staff, Lt. General Ishaya Bamaiyi of over $8 million has on Friday, July 18, 2014 lost an appeal to stop the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from continuing his trial of the purported scam.
Ajudua, who was said to have defrauded Bamaiyi between November 2004 and June 2005 had approached a Lagos court of Appeal demanding a striking out of the EFCC suit against him, challenging the competence of the charge and the jurisdiction of the Lagos High Court.
The court has dismissed Ajudua’s preliminary objection in which he claimed a lack of proof in the 14-count charge against him. Presiding judge Atinuke Ipaye subsequently dismissed the objection.
Channels TV reports:
The Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday, July 18, 2014 dismissed Ajudua’s application challenging the competence of the charge and the jurisdiction of the Lagos High Court.
Ajudua, who was arraigned before Justice Atinuke Ipaye of the Lagos High Court on a 14-count charge that borders on obtaining by false pretence, had filed notice of preliminary objection in which he stated that the proof of evidence did not disclose any case against him. Justice Ipaye dismissed the Objection.
Dissatisfied, Ajudua subsequently appealed against the decision of the trial court.
At the hearing of the appeal he filed against the ruling of the Lagos State High Court dismissing his application asking the court to decline jurisdiction to entertain the charge, Ajudua contended that the lower court erred in law when it held that he could be tried under the repealed Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 1995.
Ajudua’s counsel, Olalekan Ojo, submitted in the Appellant’s Brief of Argument and Appellant’s Reply Brief of Argument dated May 13 and June 11 respectively, that at the time Bamaiyi petitioned the EFCC over the alleged offence in 2006, the law upon which the 14-count charge was framed was no longer in existence.
Maintaining that the proof of evidence did not support the charge, Ojo said: “The information as constituted at the lower court is procedurally and substantively incompetent”.
But in a unanimous ruling on Friday the Court of Appeal affirmed the decision of the trial court that the charge was competent.
Ajudua, who is a lawyer, is alleged to have fraudulently collected a total sum of $8.39 million from General Bamaiyi(Rtd) in instalments, by falsely claiming that the payments represented the professional fees charged by Chief Afe Babatola, to handle Bamaiyi’s case in court and to facilitate his release from prison.
The accused is also standing trial, alongside Charles Ovie, before Justice Kudirat Jose of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja for allegedly defrauding two Dutch businessmen of $1.69m.
Further hearing in the case is suspended till September 24, pending the outcome of Friday’s ruling by the Court of Appeal.
