A federal high court in Abuja has
restrained the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission
(ICPC) and the attorney-general of the federation (AGF) from confiscating the
assets and property belonging to Abdulaziz Yari, former governor of Zamfara
state.
In a ruling on Monday, Taiwo
Taiwo, the judge, directed parties in the case to maintain status quo pending
the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.
He said the orders made are to
subsist pending the determination of the fundamental rights enforcement suit
filed by the ex-governor.
The judge, however, said the new
ruling does not affect the interim forfeiture of Yari’s bank accounts.
The ICPC had filed the
application following an intelligence report that Yari and the two companies
“are involved in some unlawful activity against the interest of the Zamfara
state government and by extension the federal government of Nigeria.”
But Yari, through Mamhud Magaji,
his counsel, had filed an application asking for “an order of interim
injunction retraining the respondents from seizing, impounding, taking over,
confiscating or otherwise forfeiting the assets and property of the applicant
wherever they may be located within Nigeria or anywhere”, among others.
Magaji argued that the former
governor had been subjected to various forms of “intimidation, arrest and
detention based on spurious allegations by some powerful elements of the All
Progressive Congress (APC) against him.
He described the action as a
witch-hunt, adding that it was politically motivated.
“These individuals thus decided
to carry out a vendetta and revenge against the applicant including instigating
the respondents against the applicant upon their spurious conclusion without
evidence that the applicant was guilty of corrupt practices as former governor
of Zamfara and was in breach of the code of conduct act,” he said.
“The 1st and 2nd respondents are
determined on a follow up attack upon the applicant and his family by the use
of allegations of wrongdoing which had been concocted against the applicant in
2019 immediately the Supreme Court decided all elected officials of the APC
should step aside for the PDP as an excuse to arrest the applicant and his wife
and to arraign them on trumped-up charges.”
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