• S'Court rejects EFCC's appeal in Ibori's case
THE Federal Government Thursday finally filed a seven-count charge against the former House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee Chairman on fuel subsidy regime, Farouk Lawan and his alleged accomplice Boniface Emenalo at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.
Besides, the Supreme Court Thursday threw out an appeal filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against former Delta State Governor, James Onanefe Ibori on the grounds that the assignment of cases was purely an administrative matter.
While striking out the appeal, Justice Mahmud Mohammed said that the appeal had become a mere academic exercise and therefore of no consequence.
Lawan and Emenalo are alleged to have sometime in April 2012 or thereabout in Abuja within the FCT under the jurisdiction of the court while acting in the course of their official duties as chairman and secretary respectively of House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on monitoring of fuel subsidy regime conspired between themselves and with each other to corruptly obtain $3 million from Mr. Femi Otedola, Chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited.
The charge continued that this amount was an inducement to remove the name of Zenon from the committee's report and did cause the House of Representatives to remove same from the said list and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1)(C) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000. The charge said the offence was punishable under Section 8 (1) of the same Act.
According to the prosecutor, Mrs. O.O. Fatunde who is also the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation in the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lawan who has four of the seven-count charge also corruptly obtained $500,000 from Otedola as an inducement to remove the name of Zenon from the report. She said that the offence was contrary to Section 17 (1) (a) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000 and punishable under Section 17 (1) of the same Act.
In the fifth count charge, Emenalo was alleged to have corruptly asked for $3 million from Otedola to remove the name of his company from the list of companies indicted in the fuel subsidy scam, thereby violating the ICPC Act, 2000.
He was also alleged to have received gratification from the oil magnet and refused to report the offer of gratification to any officer of the ICPC, thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 23 (1) of the ICPC Act and punishable under Section 23 (3) of the same Act.
Emenalo was also accused in count seven of receiving $120, 000 as gratification from Otedola in order to remove his company's name from the report of the ad-hoc committee on monitoring of fuel subsidy regime, an action that violates Section 10 (a)(ii) of ICPC Act, 2000 and punishable under Section 10 of the same Act.
This development follows the decision of Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi of an Abuja High Court granting the Federal Government leave to prefer a criminal charge under Section 185 (b) of the Criminal Procedure Code against Lawan and his co-accused person, who is also an Assistant Director at the National Assembly.
The duo will plead guilty or not guilty to a seven-count charge slammed against them by the Federal Government.
Recently, Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo, had written to the AGF, stating his readiness to commence action against the duo if the Federal Government was not willing to do so; a situation, which the AGF condemned.
The apex court struck out the Ibori case following Chief Godwin Obla's application on behalf of EFCC to withdraw the appeal because it had lost life and turned academic.
Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Joseph Daudu (SAN) representing Ibori, did not object to the application.
The EFCC had gone to the Supreme Court in Abuja to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal, Kaduna Division which held that Ibori should be tried in Asaba over the 107 counts of money laundering and not in Kaduna.
At the federal High Court, Kaduna, Justice Shuaibu assumed jurisdiction to try Ibori even though the offence was allegedly committed in Delta State.
The case went on appeal to the Court of Appeal, Kaduna, which upheld the argument of Ibori's lawyers (JB Daudu SAN) that the case should be tried in Delta State. It was an appeal against this decision that EFCC took to the Supreme Court, which was yesterday struck out.
The apex court noted that matters that border on the discretion by the Chief Judge of the Federal High court in assignment of cases were not appealable.
The Guardian