Court vacates interim forfeiture order against Ekweremadu’s property
The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has set aside the interim order of forfeiture issued on properties belonging to former deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.
Justice Inyang Ekwo, in his ruling delivered on Friday, held that the prosecution agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) concealed facts when it applied for an interim forfeiture of the assets.
Justice Ekwo had on November 4, ordered the temporary seizure of 40 landed property belonging to the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who is currently being detained in the United Kingdom over alleged organ harvesting charges.
An EFCC lawyer, Ibrahim Buba, moved the application for the confiscation of the assets, saying they were suspicious proceeds of crime.
The lawyer told the judge that the landed properties comprise 15 in Abuja, 10 in Enugu,, one in Lagos, two in the United Kingdom, three in the United States, and nine in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The EFCC claimed the assets were allegedly acquired with proceeds of fraud.
Mr Ekwo granted the application and ordered the EFCC to, within seven days from the date of the order, publish the interim forfeiture order of the assets in a national daily.
However, in his ruling, Justice Ekwo said he had found that the application for forfeiture filed by the EFCC was not brought in good faith and ought to be struck out.
He noted that the EFCC was fully aware of the predicament of Ekweremadu and his wife in the United Kingdom (UK) and did not deny writing a letter to the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK to furnish them with information about the lawmaker, but still brought an application seeking an order for them to show cause on the assets to be forfeited.
“I do not think that the desired objective of the legislature in enacting the provision of Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act (AFFOROA), 2006 relied upon by the respondent (EFCC) in initiating the proceeding to obtain an ex-parte order of interim forfeiture order was for the provision to be used in any circumstance where the person affected is not in a position to defend himself or show cause as required.”
Besides, he equally noted that despite the fact that the ex-parte order in this case was obtained subject to the provision of Section 17 of the AFFROA 2006, the validity of the order and indeed the entire proceeding leading to the order would be affected by non-disclosure, suppression or misrepresentation of material facts.
Justice Ekwo disagreed with the EFCC that since the Ekweremadus had failed to file application to show cause, the court should go ahead with the order for final forfeiture of the assets.
(TNT)
