The
Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has re-arraigned Former Governor
of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu in Lagos for money laundering. He had asked
the Federal High Court in Abuja, last week, to compel the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to prosecute him in Abuja.
The
ex-governor, who is facing trial alongside his company, Slok Nigeria Limited,
and a former Director of Finance in Abia State, Mr. Udeh Jones Udeogu, sought
for an order of mandamus to stop the anti-graft agency from transferring his
case file to Lagos.
However,
Uzor-Kalu was formerly arraigned by the anti-graft agency before Justice Adamu
Bello of the Federal High Court in Abuja in 2007.
But
the matter was transferred to Justice Anuli Chikere of the same court after
Justice Bello’s retirement. The former governor was arraigned on a 117-count
charge which was later amended to 37 by the anti-graft agency.
The
charges bordering on corrupt diversion N3.2 billion from the coffers of Abia
state government’s treasury was said to have been committed during Uzor-Kalu’s
tenure as the governor of the state.
During
one of the sittings before Justice Chikere, the EFCC prosecutor Rotimi Jacobs
accused Uzor-Kalu of delaying the criminal trial against him.
Jacobs
said the former governor and his lawyers were hoping that all the prosecution
witnesses would die before the substantive suit against Uzor-Kalu would be
heard by the court.
The
prosecution’s allegation came after Chikere had asked parties involved in the
matter to choose a convenient date for taking of fresh plea. Jacobs had said: “I
know you want December, when all the witnesses must have died.”
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