The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed a motion before the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, asking for a stay of execution of the judgment of the Kogi State High Court delivered last 12 December, and the consequential order made four days ago, in the suit between the commission and Ali Bello.
In the 6 February judgment, Justice Rukayat Ayoola of the Kogi State High Court granted the application for committal to prison of the EFCC Chairman, AbdulRasheed Bawa for disobeying an earlier court order made on 12 December 2022.
The court also directed the Inspector General of Police to arrest Bawa and remand him in Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja for the next 14 days.
In the 12 December 2022 ruling, the court held that Bello’s arrest and detention on 29 November 2022 by the EFCC and its chairman, in the face of an earlier subsisting court order without a warrant of arrest or being informed of the offence for which he was arrested, is unlawful and unconstitutional.
Bello, a nephew to the Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, who is allegedly involved in a N10 billion fraud, had dragged Bawa to court for arresting and detaining him illegally, despite a court ruling in his favour, only for the EFCC to arraign him for alleged money laundering three days after the ruling.
But in statement by its Head, Media and Publicity, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC said that it is seeking a stay of the execution of the judgment committing Bawa to prison, as well as an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the appellants from attempting to enforce the judgment of the trial court pending the final hearing and determination of the appeal.
In the supporting affidavit to the application, deposed to by Samuel Anele Ugwuegbulam, on behalf of the commission, he affirmed that the appellants have “strong, good and arguable grounds of appeal”.
Among other things, the EFCC also submitted that the trial court in Kogi State did not have jurisdiction to entertain the matter as the alleged infringement of the respondent’s (Bello’s), fundamental human rights occurred in Abuja, and no element of it took place in Lokoja.
The EFCC also submitted that: “If the execution of the judgment of the 12 December 2022, and the pronouncement of the trial Court of 6 February, 2023 is not stayed, it will jeopardize the commission’s constitutional right of appeal and exercise of Bawa’s statutory functions”.
