BEVERLY HILLS, March 02, (THEWILL) – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has pleaded with Justice Abdulaziz Anka of the Federal High Court in Lagos not to grant Chief Mike Ozekhome SAN access to his GTB account said to have a balance of N75m.
It claimed that the money, which was paid to the senior advocate as legal fee by Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, was part of the N2.26bn arms procurement fund, alleged to have been looted by a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.).
Alleging that N1.22bn out of the N2.26bn Dasuki loot was traced to Fayose, the anti-graft agency claimed that Dasuki routed the money to Fayose through a former Minister of state for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro.
The EFCC made this claim in a counter-affidavit deposed to by one of its lawyers, Idris Mohammed, and filed in response to an application by Ozekhome seeking the unfreezing of his account.
Ozekhome’s account with Guaranty Trust Bank had since February 7, 2017, been frozen by the EFCC on the order of Justice Anka.
This made Ozekhome to approach the court, stating that the corruption-busting agency misrepresented facts to obtain the freezing order and urged Justice Anka to lift the freezing order.
He argued that the action of the EFCC had no legal justification, was
unconstitutional and was a gross violation of sections 36, 37 and 41 of the 1999 Constitution.
EFCC, in the counter affidavit, lamented that though it had earlier secured an interim order from Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos to freeze Fayose’s account, the governor, through Ozekhome, went before Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Ado Ekiti Division of the court to obtain an order to unfreeze the account.
The EFCC prosecutor stated that despite the fact that Fayose was aware that it had immediately appealed Justice Taiwo’s ruling, he allegedly went ahead to spend part of the contentious funds, paying a sum of N75m to Ozekhome who helped him to secure Justice Taiwo’s unfreezing order.
The EFCC said Ozekhome ought to have “reasonably known that the N75m was transferred to him” from Fayose’s account, which the EFCC claimed was used to retain proceeds of crime and alleged kickbacks from some contractors in Ekiti State.
The anti-graft agency then urged Justice Anka not to unfreeze Ozekhome’s account.
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