The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has restrained the National Assembly from continuing the trial of a former Chairman of the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, over an alleged diversion of N1 trillion.
The former EFCC boss was invited by the Senate to account for the fund seized from some public office holders, but rather than honour the calls of the lawmakers, he ran to the court to stop his trial.
In a motion exparte dated March 7, Lamorde, through his lawyer, Festus Keyamo, prayed the court to stop the Senate from issuing a warrant of arrest on his client pending the hearing and determination of the suit before the court.
The trial judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, after listening to the motion, ordered that, “That a limited order on injunction is hereby granted to restrain the defendants pending when they are heard on the reply to the plaintiff’s motion on notice.
“That the plaintiff’s counsel is hereby directed to obtain a certified true copy of the order in this ruling and shall cause same to be served on the Inspector-General of Police who shall, on the authority of this, refrain to give any effect to any such warrant, which the defendants may have issued against the plaintiff on the simple judicial principle of lis pendens.”
The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions had, on the strength of a petition received against Lamorde forwarded by one Mr. George Uboh, bearing an accusation of over N1 trillion fraud in the agency, invited both the petitioner and Lamorde to appear before it through separate letters.
The fraud reportedly carried out by Larmode was said to have dated back to his days as the Director of Operations of the EFCC between 2003 and 2007, as well as an acting chairman of the commission between June 2007 and May 2008.
Uboh, Chief Executive Officer of Panic Alert Security Systems, a security firm, in his petition dated July 31, 2015, accused Lamorde of some specific instances of under-remittance of funds and making secret of recovered loots from criminal suspects.
He told the Senate that he would make available “overwhelming evidence” to back his claims against Lamorde.
Uboh also claimed that the EFCC had not accounted for “offshore recoveries” and that “over half of the assets seized from suspects are not reflecting in EFCC exhibit records.”
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