Justice Chuka Obiozor of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi yesterday ordered the freezing of the sum of N9.9 billion belonging to the Lagos State government and domiciled in three new generation banks.

The judge gave the order following an ex-parte application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

It had prayed the court to freeze the accounts pending the conclusion of investigation and possible prosecution of Adewale Adesanya, a worker in the office of the Chief of Staff to immediate past Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.

The applicant in an affidavit deposed to by a member of its investigating team, Kungmi Daniel, said there was “a huge inflow of N9,927,714,443.29” from the state accounts into a bank account opened on September 17, 2018 and operated by Adesanya.

According to him, the schedule of the account showed that the accused and the other signatories allegedly made fraudulent transfers from the state accounts and dissipated the funds housed in them.

In his submission, counsel to the anti-graft agency, Mohammed Abbas, said: “The trend in the account is that the account always witnessed huge inflow from Lagos State Government in the above scheduled accounts managed by the respondent (Adesanya).”

He, therefore, prayed the court to grant an order to temporarily attach and take over the accounts to enable his client conclude its investigations.

“There have been concerted efforts and attempts to dissipate the contents of the accounts listed in the schedule to this application.

“Without freezing the nominated accounts and temporarily forfeiting the money to the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, there is no way the fraud being perpetrated using the scheduled accounts can be stopped,” he further told the court.

Consequently, Justice Obiozor granted the prayers before adjourning further proceedings to September 9, 2019.