Court grants EFCC leave to file fresh charges against Elumelu, others

Posted by admin EFCC Politics Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Justice Abimbola Banjoko of the FCT High Court has granted leave to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to file a clean copy of the corruption charges against Sen. Nicholas Ugbane.

Ubane is being charged alongside Ndudi Elumelu and Muhammed Jibo, all House of Representatives members on a 156-count charge bothering on conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.

At the resumed hearing on Thursday, Bankojo adjourned the matter to Tuesday, May 10, for the prosecution to file a clean copy of the suit, containing only the names of Ubane, Elumelu and Jibo.

She took the decision, when counsel to the second accused person, Mr Patrick Ikweto (SAN), drew the attention of the judge to the fact that the case file still bore the names of six civil servants even after the judge had severed their charges.

“My Lord, may I draw the attention of the court to the case file before us. I discovered that it still contains names of some civil servants, who are supposed to be tried differently,’’ he said.

Ikweto said the case file still contained names of the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Dr Aliyu Abdullahi and the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, Sam Gakpe.

The other civil servants in the ministry are Simon Nanley, Lawrence Orekoya, Abdulsalami Jahun and Kayode Oyedeji all directors.

The counsel said the charge was defective and the EFCC needed to file a tidy copy of the suit.

In his remarks, counsel to Ubane and Jibo, Mr Sunday Ameh (SAN), prayed the court to allow the prosecution remove the names of the civil servants from the suit so that the case could continue.

Ameh said his clients were eager for the case to commence so that they could clear their names from the corruption charges levelled against them.

“My clients have nothing to hide. We want to see that this case makes progress,” he said.

But EFCC counsel, Mr Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), raised objection to Ikweto’s submission that the charge filed by the prosecution was defective.

“My Lord, the charges are not defective because after the severance of the charges with the civil servants, the positions of the first, second and third accused persons still remained the same.

“They are also being charged on breach of due process, criminal conspiracy, diversion and misappropriation of public funds totalling more than N5.2 billion,” he said.

-Punchwp_posts