Nigerian anti-graft agency re-arraigns tycoon Tunde Ayeni a third time in $11.2 million fraud case

Nigeria's anti-graft agency has re-arraigned businessman Tunde Ayeni, the former chairman of the defunct Skye Bank, on amended fraud charges involving N15.6 billion, the third time he has been made to enter a plea in the case.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission brought Ayeni before the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Apo, Abuja, on Thursday, before trial judge Jude Onwuegbuzie, following the latest amendment of the charges. He pleaded not guilty. The commission is prosecuting him on 18 counts of criminal breach of trust, misappropriation and diversion of up to N15.6 billion, about $11.2 million, belonging to the bank.

The re-arraignment is the third since the case began. The EFCC first arraigned Ayeni on May 4 on 17 charges, after which the court remanded him in prison pending a bail application. It amended the charges to 18 counts after filing additional proof of evidence, leading to a second arraignment on June 22, and brought him back again on Thursday following a further amendment. He has pleaded not guilty on each occasion.

The allegations centre on transactions the commission says were carried out while Ayeni chaired Skye Bank's board. One charge alleges that he directed the transfer of N3.11 billion from the bank's suspense account to the account of Misa Limited at Zenith Bank in November 2014. Another alleges he directed the transfer of about N5 billion from the same suspense account to Greenwich Registrars' account at Union Bank in December 2014. The EFCC says the transactions amounted to criminal breach of trust punishable under the Penal Code, and that billions were diverted to companies linked to the defendants in breach of the bank's operational policies and regulatory guidelines.

Ayeni has denied the allegations. His lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, opposed an immediate start to the trial on Thursday, arguing that the prosecution had not filed a summary of its first witness's statement. The EFCC's counsel, Abba Muhammed, also a Senior Advocate, countered that the summary had been filed alongside the second amended charge and that the prosecution was ready to proceed with its first witness present in court. The judge held that the prosecution had complied with the requirements and fixed July 20, 22 and 23 for the trial to continue.

The case is rooted in one of the more consequential banking failures of the past decade. Ayeni chaired Skye Bank's board until July 2016, when the Central Bank of Nigeria removed the board and management during a regulatory intervention prompted by the lender's deteriorating financial condition. Skye Bank had grown rapidly, including through the 2014 acquisition of the nationalised Mainstreet Bank, and struggled under the weight of that expansion as its capital position weakened.

Two years after the intervention, in 2018, the central bank revoked Skye Bank's licence and transferred its assets and liabilities to Polaris Bank, a bridge bank the regulator established to preserve depositors' funds and continue operations. Ayeni did not continue with Polaris Bank. The collapse wiped out shareholders and became a symbol of the governance failures that regulators have since sought to address across the Nigerian banking sector.

Ayeni is a familiar figure in Nigerian business, with interests that have spanned banking, oil and gas, power and telecommunications over the years. His role at Skye Bank placed him at the centre of the country's financial industry during a period of aggressive growth and consolidation, and the charges he now faces relate to that tenure. The EFCC's case forms part of a broader push by the commission to pursue accountability for the failures of banks that collapsed under regulatory intervention.

The trial is one of several long-running prosecutions the commission is pursuing against former bank executives and public officials, cases that have often stretched across years through amendments, adjournments and procedural disputes. The repeated amendments to Ayeni's charges have already produced three arraignments in just over two months.

The proceedings resume next week, when the EFCC is expected to open its case and call its first witness. Ayeni remains before the court on charges he denies, and the prosecution must now prove its allegations at a trial the judge has scheduled to begin in earnest on July 20.