The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Lagos Zonal Directorate 1, on Monday, arraigned two individuals and a company before the Special Offences Court in Ikeja, Lagos, over an alleged attempt to defraud a Nigerian commercial bank of €49 million.
The defendants—Abel Egerton Sokari, Nkiruka Chukwuma, and Zakah Global Investment Limited—were arraigned before Justice Mojisola Dada on a six-count charge bordering on obtaining by false pretence, forgery, and possession of fraudulent documents.
According to the EFCC, the accused, along with four others currently at large—Cheryl Austin Adanti, Husain Abid, Shazad Muhammed, and Ismail Adil—sought to obtain €49 million from First Bank of Nigeria under the false claim that the funds had been transferred from Bayan Investment Bank and Hedge Fund Statutory Trust into an account belonging to Zakah Global Investment Limited.
In a separate charge, Sokari and Chukwuma were alleged to have been in possession of a forged document purportedly issued by the law office of Steven H. Sado, P.C., claimed to be a legal representative of former U.S. President Donald Trump. The EFCC said the document, dated April 2024, was known by the defendants to be false.
All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Following the plea, prosecution counsel H.U. Kofarnaisa requested a trial date and urged the court to remand the defendants pending trial. Defence counsels Clement Onwenwnor, SAN, and Laolu Owolabi, SAN, applied for bail on behalf of Sokari and Chukwuma, asking that bail be granted on liberal terms. They also offered to take custody of the defendants until bail conditions were met.
Justice Dada granted both defendants bail in the sum of N500,000 each, with one surety in like sum, and ordered their temporary release to their respective counsel. The judge directed that the bail conditions must be fulfilled within one month.
The case was adjourned to October 29, 2025, for trial.
