The Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, has ordered the name of the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, be removed from the money laundering charges filed against the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Paul Usoro (SAN).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission accused Usoro of converting and laundering N1.4bn belonging to the Akwa Ibom State Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the four out of the 10 counts filed against Usoro, the EFCC alleged that Usoro converted and laundered the N1.4bn in connivance with Emmanuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The anti-graft agency, however, did not list Emmanuel as a defendant in the case, indicating that the governor is \u201ccurrently constitutionally immune against criminal prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, listed as Usoro\u2019s co-defendants in the case are the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Finance, Nsikan Nkan; the state Accountant General, Mfon Udomah; the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Uwemedimo Nwoko; and the cashier at the Akwa Ibom State Government House, Margaret Ukpe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Emmanuel, through his lawyer, Dr Charles Mekwunye, had contended that the charges were defective because his name was mentioned in spite of the fact that he enjoyed immunity from prosecution as a sitting state governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He urged the court to quash the entire charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is unconstitutional for the complainant to supervise Akwa Ibom State\u2019s use of funds,\u201d Emmanuel\u2019s lawyer also argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, Mr Rotimi Oyedepo, told the court that Emmanuel\u2019s name was only mentioned in the charges, he was not listed as a defendant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his ruling on May 30, 2019, Justice Rilwan Aikawa agreed with the EFCC that the governor was not a defendant in the case, noting that his name was \u201cmerely mentioned\u201d as one of those who allegedly conspired with the NBA President to launder the N1.4bn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But displeased, Emmanuel approached the Court of Appeal to challenge Justice Aikawa\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a lead judgment on Friday by Justice Bello Aliyu, the Court of Appeal upheld Emmanuel\u2019s appeal and quashed the four counts in which his name appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Punch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, has ordered the name of the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, be removed from the money laundering charges filed against the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Paul Usoro (SAN). The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission accused Usoro of converting and laundering N1.4bn belonging to the Akwa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-naija-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Gov-Emmanuel-Udom.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}