Adelakun, firm get court’s nod to access accounts with Skye Bank
Lagos High Court sitting at Ikeja has vacated an ex-parte order made on September 16, 2015 freezing account numbers 1771453359 and 1771335693 belonging to Jyde Adelakun and Touch Fame Energy Company limited maintained by Skye Bank Plc.
Consequently, the court sitting before Justice Lawal Akapo granted Adelakun and Touch Fame Energy Company Limited an un-restricted access to the accounts kept in the bank.
The order granted on December 4, 2015, a copy of which was made available to The Guardian followed a similar order of Justice Mohammed Yunusa of a Federal High Court, Lagos, which declared the freezing and blocking of the applicants’ accounts as unconstitutional and a breach of their fundamental human rights.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has on September 16, 2015 obtained an ex-parte order freezing the account of Jyde Adelakun and Touch Fame Energy Company Limited operated with Skye Bank Plc.
The basis of the action of the EFCC was predicated on a petition by Skye Bank Plc on June 24, 2015 over alleged fraud alert received from an officer of JB Morgan Chase Bank America.
Consequently, the anti-graft agency charged the applicants with stealing the sum of $2,181,000 property of Morgan Chase Bank.
But in his ruling on a motion filed on November 13, 2015 by the counsel to the applicant, Rotimi Seiki, Akapo held that the EFCC has no justification in law to put on hold the applicant’s accounts.
In lifting the ex-parte order secured by the EFCC, the court stated that ex-parte order made has expired its lifespan by effuxion of time, having subsisted and lasted more than seven days.
The judge also stated that the EFCC (the respondent) grossly misled the court in obtaining the order by failing to disclose that the same case and subject matter and parties had been pending before the Federal High Court, Lagos.
Get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox every day of the week. Stay informed with the Guardian’s leading coverage of Nigerian and world news, business, technology and sports.
1 Comments
That story was inaccurate! I must say though that the matter of the Nigerian citizen whom brought funds from abroad to invest innocently in his country has being very interesting to me before I decided to do the complete coverage of his court proceedings.
The Lagos State High Court ruled that the section 34 of the EFCC Act had not being complied with as demanded by the law. The Court further stated that there was no valid petition to justify the intervention of the EFCC Lagos in the matter in the first place when there was no such e-mail fraud alert received by the Skye Bank Plc from the JP Morgan Chase Bank as falsely alleged by the Skye Bank Plc in their petition of 24th June 2015 that gave rise to the intervention of the EFCC. In addition to the foregoing, the Court stated clearly and referred to the statements made in the petition of 24th June 2015, wherein it was alleged by one Bukola Soyinka (Skye bank) that the Skye Bank Plc received an email fraud alert on the 23rd June 2015 just to cause the EFCC Lagos to come in the matter but then later on the 11th Sept 2015, the same Skye bank plc denied any contact whatsoever with the JP Morgan Chase bank, all of which led the court to partly refer to section 167 (d) of the Evidence Act that withholding of the evidence (alleged e-mailed fraud alert purported to have been received by Skye bank plc referred to in the petition of 24th June 2015 that had given rise to the EFCC intervention) related to the fact that gave birth to the intervention of EFCC Lagos, shall be to the detriment of the EFCC in this matter and the Court ruled that one cannot build something on nothing with reference to several Supreme court rulings amongst others:
Macfoy v UAC (2000) 15 WRN 185; (1962) AC 152; (1961) 13 WLR 405; (1961) 3 ALL E.R. page 1169 at 1172
In other words, since there was no valid petition in relation to the facts alleged to determine the commission of an offense, there existed no justification in the law to put a hold on the accounts. Further to that the Court found that there was a document presented by the EFCC Lagos purported to be coming from the Department of Homeland Security Investigation attaché office in Dakar, Senegal and in this referred document, an abeyance of a year period was requested for to keep the funds of the businessman on hold beginning from the 28th October 2015 – 27th Oct 2016 for investigation to be completed to determine if there’s being a commission of an offense. Whereas such freezing of account without commission of an offense is in contrary to the section 34 of the EFCC Act demands.
Foremost, the counsel for the businessman, in opposition, stated that the document presented by EFCC Lagos was fraudulently forged and produced as the documents were already presented to the Department Of Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), USA to verify the authenticity of the documents and the HSI confirmed after verification, that the EFCC Lagos documents were not originating from them but forged and that the HSI does not have any attaché office in Dakar, Senegal and of which is verifiable from the HSI website http://www.ice.gov online for all their international locations.
With regards to this forgery, the businessman has submitted his petition to the ICPC, Senate, Min of Justice, Insp. Gen Of Police and to the Presidential Villa on the 24th November 2015.
The truth of the matter is that the involved EFCC operatives requested for bribes from this businessman to which he refused to grant, it was because of all this that the EFCC falsely charged the man unlawfully. Firstly it was for money laundering, when that could not be substantiated, the EFCC Lagos accused the businessman of laundering money for various politicians most especially Bukola Saraki. After when nothing could come out of it, the businessman was wrongfully charged with receiving of stolen money purportedly belonging to JP Morgan Chase bank when there was nothing of that sort. The Court did not even rule on any effluxion of time as above read.
We will review and take appropriate action.