Ike Ekweremadu, a troubled former vice president of the senate, accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday of being responsible for his extended detention in the UK.
The Senator, who has been detained in London on suspicion of organ harvesting, testified before the Federal High Court that the EFCC sent a letter to the London court, which caused the foreign court to deny the senator’s application for release.
The charges made by Ekweremadu were included in an application he submitted to a Nigerian court, asking the judge to throw aside an interim decision that had been made in favor of the Federal Government, forfeiting 40 of his assets both inside and outside of Nigeria.
The ex-Deputy Senate President stated in the application submitted by his attorney, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), that the EFCC withheld information and facts pertaining to the assets, hence the forfeiture order was improperly issued to the Federal Government.
The imprisoned Senator said, specifically, that the EFCC had deceitfully secured the forfeiture judgment for the government by hiding the fact that the 40 properties were the subject of an inquiry dating back to 2008.
Among other things, he claimed that when the case for forfeiture of the properties was filed and litigated, the EFCC was fully aware that he was being held in London.
According to him, the anti-graft organization purposefully chose not to inform the court that he was being held in London so that they could not object to the motion for forfeiture.
As a result, Ekweremadu requested that the forfeiture order be revoked and that the case’s proceedings be put on hold until he is able to successfully navigate the London Court system.
Silvanus Tahir (SAN), the EFCC’s attorney, denied involvement in Ekweremadu’s tragedy.
He acknowledged that EFCC wrote the London Court as a result of a special request, but insisted that sharing information that would be useful to one another was standard for anti-graft organizations.
Tahir vigorously opposed the plea to set aside the forfeiture order, but he did not object to the request for a stay of the proceedings until Ekweremadu had properly resolved his case before the London Court.
Following the parties’ arguments, Justice Ekwo set the date for the decision to be made as January 25 of the following year.
On Friday, November 4, the court issued a temporary forfeiture order for 40 lands connected to Ekweremadu, both inside and outside of Nigeria.
The ex-parte motion was submitted and moved by Ibrahim Buba, counsel for the EFCC, and Justice Ekwo then gave the ruling.
The EFCC was given a seven-day deadline by the judge, who granted the request, to publish the interim forfeiture order of the property.
Anyone with a stake in the forfeited property was required to submit a written argument as to why it should not be permanently forfeited to the federal government within 14 days of the interim forfeiture order’s publication.
There were ten affected properties in Enugu, three in the US, two in the UK, one in Lagos, nine in Dubai, the UAE, and fifteen in the Federal Capital Territory.
