Federal
High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) to disclose within 72hours, the whereabouts of
the money and properties forfeited by the convicted former Managing
Director of Oceanic Bank (now Ecobank), Mrs. Cecilia Ibru.
Presiding Justice Mohammed Idris gave the order while delivering judgment in a Freedom of Information (FOI) suit filed by the President of Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN), Mr Boniface Okezie. Mr Okezie, had filed the suit against the EFCC as well as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN).
He
had also urged the court to compel the two defendants to render account
of all the legal fees paid so far to private lawyers handling its
criminal cases. Delivering judgment, Justice Idris held that it was
imperative for the anti-graft agency to account for the assets recovered
from Ibru, which amounted to about N191 billion.
The
judge also ordered Mr Adoke and the EFCC to, within seventy-two hours,
disclose the amounts they have respectively spent on hiring private
lawyers for criminal prosecution. In addition, the court ordered the
defendants to disclose the amounts they pay their in-house counsel and
their qualifications. The defendants, according to the judge, are also
to state the reasons for preferring private lawyers to their in-house
counsel, as well as the amount they have spent for the training of their
in-house counsel in the past one year.
The
assets forfeited by Mrs Cecila Ibru included 94 landed property
scattered in Nigeria, Dubai and the United States of America, as well as
shares in about 100 firms both listed and unlisted in the Nigeria Stock
Exchange (NSE). It would be recalled that Mrs Ibru was sentenced to
eighteen months imprisonment by the then Chief Judge of the Federal High
Court, Justice Dan Abutu after she pleaded guilty to a three-count
charge of recklessly granting credit facilities.
BACKGROUND:
Ibru had admitted granting an illegal credit facility of $20 million to
WAVES Project Nigeria Limited and N2 billion unlawful credit to Petosan
Farms. She also agreed that she failed to ensure that the 2009 balance
sheet of Oceanic Bank was a true view of the state of affairs of the
bank.
Justice
Idris, had in a sister case, ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
to account for the assets forfeited by Ibru also within seventy-two
hours. Already, the CBN has appealed against that verdict. In the notice
of appeal, the apex bank stressed that accounting for the assets was
not possible in view of the fact that it would expose the legal fees
paid to lawyers that handled the matter.
The
appeal, which was anchored on one point stated above, was filed by
Gabriel Olawoyin (SAN) on behalf of the CBN. The appeal is yet to be
heard and determined by the appellate court.
Source: Channels TV
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