Former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has described reports that he missed a court session on Wednesday due to a heart disease as false.
He made this known in a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Obiageli Nwachukwu, online news medium Headline reported.
Fani-Kayode said a “heart-related ailment” and not a “heart disease” prevented him from making it to court, adding that he would be presenting a medical report to that effect in court at a later date.
The statement read in part, “It has been brought to our attention that the Punch Newspaper of 31st January 2018 has reported, in a blazing and sensational headline, that the former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, ‘has heart disease’. This is false.
“It is only in the world of the reporter of the Punch Newspaper that a ‘heart-related ailment’ has suddenly become heart disease.'”
The former minister is presently facing a 17-count charge bordering on money laundering before Justice Rilwan Aikawa of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court.
Fani-Kayode is being prosecuted alongside a former Minister of State for Finance, Nenadi Usman, a former National Chairman of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON), Yusuf Danjuma, and Jointrust Dimensions Nigeria Limited.
Mr Norrison Quakers (SAN), who represented Fani-Kayode, had told the court that his client’s wife informed him that the former minister complained about “heart-related ailment” and could not make it to court for his trial.