Exactly eight days after the
Supreme Court upheld Federal Government’s interim seizure of the $8.4million
believed to be owned by ex-First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, the apex court
has again agreed to a similar forfeiture of another N2.4bn linked with Mrs.
Jonathan.
While men of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said the $8.4m were discovered in some
accounts linked to the ex-First Lady, the N2,421,953,522.00 was said to be held
in bank accounts owned by Lawari Furniture and Bath Limited, an entity in which
Mrs. Jonathan allegedly has interest.
In a judgment on Friday, a
five-man panel of the Supreme Court rejected the appeal by Lawari Furniture on
the grounds that it was without merit. The appeal was filed and argued for the
appellant by Mike Ozekhome (SAN).
In the lead judgment written by
Justice Amiru Sanusi, but read by Justice Sidi Bage the court upheld the order
of interim forfeiture made by a High Court in Lagos on April 26, 2017, which
was affirmed by the Court of Appeal, Lagos in a judgment given on January 12,
2018.
The court rejected the argument
by appellant, who faulted the interim order of forfeiture obtained by the EFCC
via an ex-parte motion, and prayed that it be set aside.
It also rejected the appellant’s
prayer to void Section 17 of the Advanced Fee Fraud Act and other Fraud related
offences Act, on which the High Court relied in issuing the order of interim
forfeiture.
The court, in the lead judgment,
noted that it rarely interferes in the concurrent findings of the two lower
courts, except where there are exceptional circumstances and the findings
perverse.
It noted that, in the instant
case, no such exceptional circumstances existed.
In his supporting judgment, a
member of the panel, Justice Ejembi Eko observed that the substance of this
appeal was similar to the one decided by the court on March 8 this year
(relating to the interim forfeiture of $8.4m).
Justice Eko said both appeals
ought not to be split and assigned to different panels to avoid the risk of
issuing conflicting judgments.
He found nothing wrong with the
provision of Section 17 of the Money Laundering Act, which he noted, was the
same as the provision in Section 29 of EFCC Act.
Other members of the panel:
Justices Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, Mary Peter Odili and Kudirat Kekere-Ekun,
agreed with the lead judgment.
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