The Federal High Court in Abuja has upheld the order it gave on July 20, 2016, authorising the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to seize some assets belonging to Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State.
This was in response to an application by Fayose’s lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), asking the court to set aside the interim forfeiture orders on 10 grounds.
The EFCC’s lawyer, Mr. Andrew Akoja, opposed the application, insisting that the commission had violated no law by obtaining the order.
Ruling on Tuesday, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba said that the order did not violate the provisions of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution, which confers immunity from civil and criminal proceedings on a governor
He said: “It is my considered opinion that the order of court, made on July 20, 2016, in respect of some property of the applicant, and within the limited scope and duration within which it was obtained, was duly procured and does not offend the provision of the Constitution referred to.
“Although Section 308 of the Constitution serves to isolate governors of states from the distraction of litigation and legal proceedings to enable them to attend to official responsibilities, it should not be interpreted in such a way as to defeat the fight against corruption, to mean that the EFCC or other investigating agencies cannot take a peep into the assets or personal accounts of a serving governor in the execution of a strictly worded and mutually supervised interim attachment orders for the purposes of obtaining evidence for use in future when the immunity has lapsed.”