The Chairman, Presidential
Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has asked banks
to ignore the demand by the House of Representatives’ panel to unfreeze
accounts of former First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan in six banks.
The House of Representatives
Committee on Public Petitions, had on Tuesday ordered banks to unfreeze
accounts belonging to former First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan.
According to them, the freezing
was carried out without no specific restriction orders from any competent court
of law.
The affected banks were: Union
Bank, First Bank, EcoBank, Diamond Bank, Fidelity Bank and Skye Bank.
Sagay while reacting, said the
House lacked the legal right to order a bank to unfreeze an account which was
frozen by a court or by the EFCC.
The senior advocate said, “The
House of Representatives is acting totally outside of its functions and constitutional
rights. It is trying to take over a court. Only a court higher than the High
Court which froze the accounts can say they should be unfrozen.
“It seems the legislature, which
has been trying to carry out executive functions, is now trying to hijack
judicial functions. I think the House is trying to ridicule Nigerian democracy
and I thought they were the more thoughtful arm of the National Assembly.”
He added that the EFCC had the
power to temporarily freeze an account pending a substantive court order.
“The EFCC has the power to
temporarily freeze an account and then obtain a court order. Normally what the
EFCC does is to flag such accounts and then get a court order and I am sure
they are in the process of that.
“So, I think we should just
ignore the vituperations of the House of Representatives which seems to have
lost sense of its true functions and is now delving into a judicial work,” he
said.
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please teach them because they believe they know everything 😁😁
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