$6bn Mambila fraud: How Agunloye received N5.2m, says witness

A prosecuting witness in the trial of Olu Agunloye over the $6 billion Mambila Power Project contract fraud on Monday, June 10, 2024, narrated how the former Minister of Power and Steel received the sum of N5.2m.

Appearing before Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie of the Federal Capital City (FCT) High Court, sitting in Apo, Abuja, the witness also narrated how multiple transfers were made in favour of Agunloye by a staff of Sunrise Power and Transmission Ltd, Jide Sotirin.

Agunloye is currently being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on seven-count charges bordering on official corruption and fraudulent award of the Mambila Power Project contract.

EFFC in a statement on Thursday said the witness, Adebayo Ilori who is a compliance officer with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) while being led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Abba Mohammed, disclosed that “Sometimes in October 2022, the bank received a letter from EFCC requesting for some information on the account opening package, statement of account and certificate of identification on two customers, Olu Agunloye and Jide Sotirin.

“Upon receiving the letter, Wale Agunbiade, head of the Unit went ahead to generate the statement of account from the computer system of the bank.

“Upon receiving the account opening package and statement of account, we compared the information generated because the statement of account was generated from the bank’s application by imputing the customer’s details on the computer system and all the parameters requested, which was then printed out.

“Then, the bank compared what was printed and what was on the system to ascertain the accuracy of documents.

“The bank further prepared a covering letter and certificate of identification with the requested documents, which was signed by Wale Agunbiade, and then dispatched to the EFCC.”

When the court showed him the acknowledgement copy of the said documents from the EFCC and GTB’s response by the prosecution counsel, the witness confirmed that they were genuine, following which they were admitted by the court as exhibits.

Further in his testimony, Ilori stated that Sotirin was the signatory to the account from which he transferred a total sum of N5,221,000.00 (Five Million, Two Hundred and Twenty-one Thousand) to Agunloye, allegedly in relation to the Mambila Power Project contract award.

The witness also established that Sotirin on August 10, 2019, transferred the sum of N3,600,000.00 from his account to Agunloye.

Ilori further disclosed that on October 22, 2019, he transferred N500,000.00 to Agunloye and equally did so on November 13, 2019, to the tune of N1,121,000.00.