Court sets May 25 to rule on Tunde Ayeni bail application in $11.3 million fraud case

The Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Apo, Abuja, has fixed May 25 to rule on the bail application filed by Tunde Ayeni, the former Skye Bank chairman currently held at Kuje Correctional Centre on a 17-count charge involving alleged fraud totaling N15.665 billion ($11.3 million).

At the resumed hearing on Wednesday before Justice Jude Onwuzuruike, lead defence counsel Dele Adesina, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, moved the bail application on behalf of his client and was supported by four other Senior Advocates. Adesina drew the court's attention to a procedural issue that his side considers significant: Ayeni had already been granted administrative bail by the EFCC before the court ordered him remanded at the previous hearing. The process of perfecting that administrative bail was already underway when the remand order came in. Adesina argued that Ayeni, a lawyer with more than 35 years of practice, is entitled to the constitutional presumption of innocence and that all the charges in the 17-count complaint are bailable offences.

The EFCC's counsel, G.I. Inde, opposed the application and urged the court to refuse bail, filing a 23-paragraph counter-affidavit accompanied by a supporting exhibit setting out the prosecution's reasons why Ayeni should remain in detention while the trial proceeds.

Justice Onwuzuruike adjourned the matter to May 25 to rule on the bail application. Ayeni remains at Kuje in the interim.

Ayeni was arraigned on May 4 after the EFCC picked him up in Abuja on April 23. He pleaded not guilty to all 17 counts, which allege criminal breach of trust, misappropriation and conversion of depositors' funds through a series of transfers from Skye Bank's suspense account to accounts linked to a network of companies between 2014 and 2016. Specific counts allege transfers of N3.2 billion to Misa Limited, N5.07 billion to Union Registrar Limited, N1 billion to Beks Kimse Limited, and several other tranches, alongside a count alleging he directly withdrew N2.475 billion in cash from the suspense account.

The EFCC previously arraigned Ayeni on related charges in December 2018 alongside former Skye Bank managing director Timothy Oguntayo. Those charges were withdrawn in July 2022 following what proceedings described as a settlement involving forfeitures. The current arraignment opens a new chapter in what the EFCC regards as unresolved financial misconduct from the period leading up to Skye Bank's collapse and its subsequent restructuring into Polaris Bank by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria.