President Tinubu recently transmitted the names of three ambassadorial nominees to the senate for approval with one of them being Ayodele Oke, a former director general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
His nomination has expectedly set tongues wagging owing to his previous history with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
previous Case
In 2019, a Federal High Court in Lagos issued a warrant for the arrest of Ayodele Oke and Folasade, his wife for failing to appear in court to answer for a N13 billion money laundering charges against them.
Oke and his wife were wanted in connection with the laundering of $43 million, £27,800 and N23.8m cash recovered by the commission from an apartment at Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, in April 2017. Another charge showed a $160 million sum that the couple were accused of diverting from the Nigerian federal government for their own use.
The case led to the suspension of Ayodele Oke as director general of the NIA after Yemi Osinbajo, who was Vice President of Nigeria at the time, headed a committee that investigated the incident and recommended to President Buhari that he be removed.
In June 2023, Premium Times citing unnamed “inside sources” reported that the NIA DG Ahmed Abubakar and the chairman of the EFCC Abdul Rasheed Bawa met and resolved to terminate the legal proceeding against Oke in the “interest of national security”. This was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari who ordered the termination of the case before the expiration of his tenure.
On 9 June 2023, the case was struck out by Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos following prosecutor’s (EFCC) motion to withdraw the case and two years later he is back as an ambassadorial nominee under president Bola Ahmed Tinubu.