Court strikes out EFCC’s motion for transfer of Nnamani’s trial

JUSTICE Charles Archibong of a Federal High Court, Lagos, yesterday

scolded the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the

delay in the trial of former governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke

Nnamani, his companies and others over alleged financial impropriety.

The judge also struck out a motion filed by the EFCC counsel, Kelvin Uzozie, for a transfer of the trial to another judge as a result of what the counsel called “certain comments and conducts of Justice Archibong, which they believe are prejudicial to the case”.

Before the judge berated the anti-graft agency, the prosecution (EFCC) had at the resumed trial of the accused, asked for a short adjournment to sort out some things with the defence. Piqued by the application, Justice Archibong sought to know what the prosecution was waiting to sort out with the defence, when already it has a pending letter seeking transfer of the trial to another judge.

In the EFCC’s letter addressed to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court and dated June 27, 2011, its counsel said the prosecution was compelled to ask for transfer as a result of Justice Archibong’s comments of July 22, 2010, in which he allegedly said, when the matter was mentioned, that he would not try the case because of the number of counts contained in the charge and demanded the prosecution to reduce the counts to four.                .

In his submission, Rickey Tarfa (SAN) representing Nnamani and the fifth defendant, also told the court that there were still some things being sorted out with the prosecution.

After waiting for explanation from EFCC without success, the judge

sought to know the direction to follow in the matter. “This matter was listed today for trial. We cannot just be adjourning without cause, I don’t know what is happening, we cannot just be coming here everyday without doing anything. Don’t scandalise the court. While you are taking your time, you either move your motion or it will be struck out”, he said.

But the second defendant’s counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), urged the court to deal with the motion first so that the matter could go on.             .

According to him, it appeared that it was a matter of priority and perhaps, there was need for the motion to be struck out so that the court would be justified to fix a date for trial. At this point, Uzozie aligned himself with the submission of Ikpeazu by withdrawing the motion to pave way for trial in the next adjourned date.              .

The court subsequently struck out the motion and fixed April 4, 2012, for trial.

It will be recalled that the EFCC had last year re-arraigned Nnamani on a 124-count charge of alleged money laundering. He was arraigned alongside former commissioners and some of his companies for same offence and economic crime to the tune of N5 billion.