A
pro-democracy group, Open Democracy Network, on Sunday asked President
Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde, and other officials of the
commission “to pave the way for the re-organisation of the anti-graft
body.”
The
group was reacting to the decision of the EFCC to press new fraud
charges against a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva.
The group,
in a statement by its spokesperson, Mahmood Mahmood, on Sunday
accused the EFCC of reactivating a “frivolous litigation that merely
embarrassed the country and the legal system.”
The EFCC
had, in a fresh 50-count suit filed on Friday, accused Sylva, alongside
Francis Okukoro, Gbenga Balogun and Samuel Ogbuku, of using three
companies – Marlin Maritime Limited, Eat Catering Services Limited, and
Haloween-Blue Construction and Logistics Limited – to move about
N19.2bnon from Bayelsa State coffers between 2009-2012, on the pretext
of using the money to supplement the salaries of the state government’s
workers.
The Open
Democracy Network, however, said the new suit bordered on a 42-count
criminal charge that Justice Ahmed Ramat Mohammed of the Federal High
Court, Abuja, had, on June 10, dismissed and accused the EFCC of abuse
of court process.
The
statement read, “Having lost its case, the EFCC has approached the
Federal High Court once again; even though, it knows it can never win
this matter in a properly constituted court of law. This strange
50-count suit against Sylva constitutes an even greater abuse of court
processes and, from every indication, it will suffer same fate as the
other frivolous ones. Why?
“Even a
young lawyer knows that once a case has been dismissed, the only option
open to the loser is to go on appeal. It cannot return to the same court
or a court of coordinate jurisdiction. Secondly, under the rules of the
court, a prosecuting authority has to conclude its investigation before
proceeding to court, satisfied that it has a case it can substantiate.
“Investigations
and trials cannot be open-ended. Sylva left office since January 2012,
why is it difficult for EFCC to prove anything against him in court?
Their style has been to conduct a media trial in order to ridicule Sylva
and try to ‘finish’ his political career. Unfortunately for them, Sylva
is still rising!
“We are of
the view that this ‘new’ suit against Sylva, a victim of President
Jonathan’s impunity, constitutes a national embarrassment. It is an
embarrassment to this government. It is an embarrassment even to the
EFCC itself.”
No comments:
Post a Comment