A constitutional lawyer, Ewa Okpo, has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of “mischief trial” with regards to the case of former Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello.
In an interview on AriseTV on Saturday April 27, Okpo stated that for any successful prosecution in Nigeria, adherence to six categories of laws is essential.
He accused the EFCC of abusing court processes to arrest the former Kogi State.
“I think that it is a rather unfortunate narrative for Nigeria, and to summarize the whole of this drama in legal terms would be to just say, look, this is an abuse of the court process,” he said.
“Why do I say abuse of court process? Look, to successfully prosecute anybody in Nigeria, in this case, the EFCC is prosecuting Yahaya Bello; there are six categories of laws that you must follow.
“The ground law being the constitution, administration of criminal justice act, the law that empowers the prosecutor, in this case, EFCC act, the law that defines the offense and the punishment, in this case, money laundering act, and then the law of the courts with jurisdiction.
“In this case, that would be the Federal High Court Act, Practice Directive and the rest of it that guides proceedings at the Federal High Court, and, of course, the Evidence Act and other ancillary legislations.
“Now what is expected of the EFCC in this instance, where you follow all of these laws put together? They ought to have at first invited the suspect, in the person of Mr Yahaya Bello; when he refuses l to honour the invite; EFCC does not even need to get a warrant from the court; it is an administrative power to issue a warrant.
“If you cannot execute the warrant, or provided that you have done sufficient investigation, you file an information in the court, and cause the information to be served on the suspect. At this level, it is not the EFCC that would do that.
“I think by virtue of section 389 of the Criminal Justice Act, it is the court officer, the sheriff, or the bailiff who would do that. The reason being that, it could be that the suspect, Mr. Yahaya Bello, is evading arrest or being served, it could be that EFCC is not even telling the truth. So the court will now step in and attempt to serve him.
“The information will be attached to an order. Where the court officer fails, cannot effect that service, he calls back to court; he feels there is a form they call affidavit of non-service, he feels it, at that point the court can now issue an order of service of the information, that is when all the TV stations, the radio stations, newspapers, in fact they can decide to post the charge on all the buildings in Kogi State and Abuja.
“You see how simple this is. This is the step the EFCC ought to have taken. And within two months, they would have gotten to this.
“But sadly, you know, they rather attempted to arrest the man when they could not arrest him. Being smart, I must give it to Yahaya Bello; he got his lawyers, and they ran to the court and got an order restraining the EFCC.
“Now you must understand because I think that what the EFCC are trying to do is what can be described as trial by mischief,” he added.
Expressing concern over the EFCC’s handling of the case, Okpo criticized the commission’s attempts to arrest Bello without following proper legal procedures.
He stated that court orders restraining law enforcement agencies from harassing or arresting individuals should be respected and emphasized that such orders do not restrain the courts themselves.
Okpo condemned the EFCC’s disregard for the court orders and its failure to approach the Federal High Court to seek appropriate legal remedies.
He reiterated the importance of upholding court orders and stressed the need for accountability within law enforcement agencies.
Okpo also commended the court’s intervention, stressing that it serves as a crucial check on the actions of law enforcement agencies and promotes adherence to the rule of law.
“Now, the EFCC is the watchdog. We need the EFCC to function in Nigeria. But in the course of them being the watchdog, who watches them? And so when there is an order, EFCC, you cannot correct wrong by doing wrong.
“Now, since there was an order restraining the EFCC, they had no business attempting to arrest Mr. Yahaya Bello,” he added.
