The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Tuesday, challenged the transfer of the money laundering case against the former governor of Abia State and Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Uzor Kalu, from the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court to Abuja.
The commission which opposed the planned arraignment of the former governor and his co-Defendants, Jones Udeogu and Slok Nigeria Limited, before Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja has thus applied for an adjournment of the trial sine die (indefinitely) pending the result of two separate letters it wrote to the Chief Judge of the High Court, Justice John Tsoho, requesting that the case-file be returned back to Lagos.
Lead counsel to the EFCC, Chile Okoroma made the application after the case against the Defendants was called up for their arraignment.
Okoroma told the court that the Commission, on January 20, wrote a letter to the CJ, requesting the transfer of the case to Lagos “based on earlier decision of both this Court and the Court of Appeal that no element of the case for which the Defendants are standing trial, took place in Abuja”.
He said the EFCC also wrote another letter of reminder to the CJ on February 2.
“My lord one thing that is certain is that this case cannot proceed in Abuja here as it will amount to an exercise in futility”, the Prosecution counsel added.
Counsel to the former governor, Awa Kalu, that of the 2nd Defendant, Solo Akuma, and that of the company, K. C. Nwufor, did not respond to EFCC’s contention.
Consequently, Justice Ekwo directed the Defendants who were already inside the dock to step down, even as he adjourned the case till June 7 for report of the outcome of EFCC’s letters to the CJ.
It will be recalled that Kalu, who governed Abia State from 1999 to 2007, was earlier found guilty and handed a 12-year jail term by the Lagos Division of the court.
The trial court convicted him alongside his firm, Slok Nigeria Limited and a former Director of Finance in Abia State, Jones Udeogu, for allegedly stealing about N7.1billion from the state treasury.
However, the Supreme Court, in its judgement on May 8, 2020, quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial of the Defendants by the EFCC.
In a unanimous decision by a seven-man panel of Justices, the Supreme Court, nullified the entire proceedings that led to Kalu’s conviction, stressing that the trial judge, Justice Mohammed Idris, was already elevated to the Court of Appeal, as at the time he sat and delivered a judgement against the Defendants.
It noted that Justice Idris was no longer a judge of the Federal High Court as at December 5, 2019, the day the former governor and his co-Defendants were found guilty of the money laundering charge against them.
According to the Supreme Court, Justice Idris, having been elevated to the Court of Appeal before then, lacked the powers to return to sit as a High Court Judge.
It, therefore, ordered that the charge in suit No. FHC/ABJ/CR/26/2017, which EFCC entered against Kalu and his co-defendants, should be remitted back to Chief Judge of the Federal High Court for re-assignment to any other judge for the trial to commence de-novo (afresh).
The judgement followed an appeal Kalu’s firm, Slok, lodged to challenge the jurisdiction of the High Court that tried the matter and found the Defendants guilty.
Though the initial trial took place in Lagos, CJ of the High Court however transferred the case-file to Abuja for retrial.
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