A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has admitted former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Skye Bank Plc, Mr. Tunde Ayeni, to bail in the sum of N200 million, in his alleged fraud trial.

Ayeni is standing trial on a 17-count charge bothering on alleged N15.6 billion frauds, brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

He pleaded not guilty to the entire counts in the charge, following which his lawyer, Mr. Dele Adesina, SAN, applied to the court to admit the defendant to bail.

Although, the prosecution, represented by Mr. G.I. Inde, had opposed the bail.

The trial judge, Justice Jude Onwuzuruike, in his ruling on Monday admitted the defendant to bail of N200 million with two sureties in like sum.

The court in granting the application observed that the essence of bail was to compel the defendant to attend trial.

Onwuzuruike pointed out that the claim by the prosecution that the defendant will influence the trial was speculative and could not stop the granting of bail.

The court stated that it was a trite law that an accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

As conditions for the bail, the court held that the two sureties must be federal civil servants and they must submit their national identification cards and letter of employment, and they must have property worth N500 million.

The court, among other things, held that one of the sureties must write an undertaking of a bank guarantee to the tune of N15 billion.

The court, however, charged the officers of the correctional centre to grant the defendant enough access to his lawyers pending the perfection of his bail conditions.

EFCC had in 2019 tried Ayeni and one Timothy Oguntayo on similar matters in which the duo pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Ayeni’s counsel, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, then argued that the transactions under investigation by EFCC were fundamentally commercial and banking transactions rather than criminal diversions of funds and in fact there was already an understanding between the bank and the duo for which the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria was sought and obtained by the management of Skye bank.

Olanipekun at the trial then submitted that the dispute “arose out of business transactions that went sour” and emphasised that the issues were amenable to amicable resolution.

He maintained that the funds in question were not unlawfully diverted, but were part of legitimate banking transaction arrangements undertaken in the ordinary course of the bank’s operations.

Subsequently, the parties agreed to settle the matter out of court and informed the court accordingly.

At the final sitting, the terms of settlement reached by the parties were presented to the court which were the terms already approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria even before the commencement of the investigation by EFCC.

Alex Enumah