The Federal High Court in Lagos has further adjourned till March 12 further proceedings in the N450m fraud trial of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Dele Belgore, and a former Minister of National Planning, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman.

The SAN and the professor are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for allegedly laundering N450m in the build-up to the 2015 presidential election.

In the charges against them, the EFCC accused Belgore, who was the Kwara State Coordinator of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign organization in 2015, and Sulaiman of laundering N450m days before the presidential election.

The EFCC claimed that the N450m was part of the sum of $115m, which a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, allegedly doled out to compromise the 2015 presidential election.

It said the SAN and the don “ought to have reasonably known that the N450m formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful act.”

The prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, said Belogore and Sulaiman violated sections 1(a), 16(d), 15(2)(d) and18(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act, 2012 and were liable to be punished under sections 15(3)(4), and 16(2)(b) of the same Act.

But the defendants pleaded not guilty.