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EFCC is constitutional, court
rules
By Victor
Efeizomor.
Law
Reporter.
The Federal Government on Tuesday
won a legal victory on the constitutionality of setting up the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when an Ikeja High Court Judge,
disagreed with Chief GOK Ajayi, SAN, and ruled that the agency has the
backing of the 1999 constitution.
Ajayi, the lead counsel to
Emmanuel Nwude, a former director in Union Bank, who is standing trial,
with Amaka Martina Anajemba, and Nzerebe Edeh Okoli for allegedly
defrauding a Brazilian Bank of the sum of $269million, had challenged the
constitutionality of the EFCC.
Ajayi had told the court that
the commission lacked the competence, power and authority to prosecute the
alleged offence as contained in the charges. He sought for an order that
the provision of EFCC under which the charges where brought is
unconstitutional, null and void and asked the court for an order to
discharge and acquit the applicants.
The prosecution counsel,
Rotimi Jacobs, however argued
that sections 15(4) and (e) of the constitution support the
enactment of the EFCC Act and
that if the court finds that the substance of the act is within the
legislative powers of the National Assembly it cannot be invalidated by
incidental matters.
Jacobs also submitted that
although section 12 (12) of the EFCC Act 2002 was repealed by section 44
of the EFCC Act 2004, the said section was re-enacted as section 13(2) in
the 2004 Act.
Ruling on the arguments on
Tuesday, Justice Joseph
Oyewole, stated that � any pronouncement by this court on the issue raised
relating to the competence or validity of the provision go the EFCC Act
2002 a repealed Act, would amount to a purely academic exercise as having
been repealed, the said Act is a dead law having no longer effect
whatsoever�.
Oyewole said that if he were
to uphold Ajayi�s arguments,� it cannot lead to the discharge of applicant
and his co- accused persons as they were not charged before this court
under that Act.�
On the issue of the forfeiture
of assets by the accused persons, Oyewole posited that there was no
pending application before his court for forfeiture and that his court has
not made any order or interim order on the issue � and would be
speculative and as such will not go towards resolving any pending dispute�
He therefore dismissed the application for lack of
merits.
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