The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Friday identified Mrs Folashade Oke as the owner of the apartment in Ikoyi, where the agency recovered a huge sum of cash in April.
Mrs Oke is the wife of the suspended Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Mr Ayodele Oke, whose agency had laid claim to the money.
Operatives of the anti-graft agency had stormed Flat 7b, No. 13, Osborne road, Osborne Towers in Ikoyi, Lagos, where the sums of $43,449,947; £27,800 and N23,218,000 were recovered.
Speaking at the Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday, counsel to the EFCC, Rotimi Oyedepo, told Justice Muslim Hassan that Mrs Oke made a cash payment of $1.658m for the purchase of the flat between August 25 and September 3, 2015.
He asked the judge to order the permanent forfeiture of the funds to the Federal Government.
Channels Television reporters that the EFCC counsel also argued that the fact that the apartment was purchased in a criminal manner, made the N13bn recovered therein “extremely suspicious to be proceeds of unlawful acts”.
Earlier, the court heard an application by a lawyer, Mr. Olukoya Ogungbeje, urging the court to suspend further action in the forfeiture proceedings, pending the outcome of the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo-led panel investigating the claim by the NIA boss that the money belongs to the agency.
Justice Hassan adjourned till June 6, 2017 to either suspend action in the case if Ogungbeje’s application has merit, or if found to lack merit, proceed to give judgment for the final forfeiture of the funds.
