A prosecution witness and Chief Inspector(CI) of Intercontinental Bank Plc, Abduraheem Jimoh, has told the trial judge of a Lagos High Court, Justice Habeeb Abiru, how former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Dr. Erastus Akingbola diverted about N2.1bn belonging to the bank to his own domiciliary account in March 2009.
Jimoh, the first prosecution witness in the corruption trial of Akingbola and Bayo Dada, at the commencement of the trial yesterday, explained that the money was meant for the bank’s Nostro account, but alleged that the former chief executive transferred the amount equivalent of 8,540,134.48 pounds sterling to his domiciliary account on March 13, 2009.
Jimoh who said that his duties as the CI of the bank included identifying and investigating transactions of the bank and submitting the report of his findings to the Management and Board of Directors of the bank, claimed Deutsche Bank alerted Intercontinental Bank on Akingbola’s transaction.
Jimoh stated that the bank conducted investigations on five different transactions, involving, E8.5m, E1.3m, N10bn, N2.5bn and N8.6bn, carried out by Akingbola while he was the MD/CEO of the bank.
He also said that the money was credited into the account of a subsidiary of the bank, Intercontinental Capital Market but later moved to the account of Regal Investment Company Limited.
From the Regal Investment Company Limited’s account, Jimoh continued, the money was disbursed to various Bureau de change operators.
Jimoh further revealed that in exchange of the sums each of the seven operators got, the total amount of$11,840,427.00 was paid by one Loveth, into the
Interdepartmental Suspense Account of Intercontinental Bank.
He testified that the said money was subsequently converted to pounds to become E8,540,134.48 and was transferred to Akingbola’s account.