Court Strikes Out Fraud Charge against Innoson

Honorable Justice Williams of the Special Offences Tribunal of Lagos State High Court Ikeja today, October 10th 2018, struck out the alleged fraud charge filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission against Mr. Innocent Chukwuma, alias Innoson and his company Innoson Nigeria Limited.

The fraud charge which was originally before Justice Dada’s Court was later recalled and transferred to Justice Williams as a result of a petition by Innoson to the National Judicial Council to investigate the circumstance leading to Honorable Justice Mojisola Dada of Lagos State High Court issuing a bench warrant against him and ordering his arrest. Subsequently, the National Judicial Council in response to the petition, requested the Chief Judge of Lagos State to recall the case file from Justice Dada’s Court for reassignment to another judge. The case was later reassigned to Justice Olusola Williams.

During today’s proceedings, Counsel to the EFCC Zainab Ettu “informed the court that they had been unable to effect the arrest of Mr. Chukwuma. In her words, she stated that “I think at this stage while we still pursue the arrest of the defendant, I think it behoves on the defense counsel being ministers at the temple of justice to carry out their duty to the court to ensure that they produce their client in court because they took brief from him and they can tell when who briefed them can be in court.”

“They filed multiple applications but they cannot produce their client in court. We ask for an adjournment to produce the 2nd defendant in court. No matter what, he cannot be above the law. We already have his warrant of arrest when the case was before Justice Moji Dada.”

In response, the counsel to Innoson, Prof J.N Mbadugha Esq, submitted that prior to this charge “all the defendants in this matter are being charged at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi in charge number FHC/L/565C/2015 in respect of the same subject matter and transactions as in this particular charge and that charge is being prosecuted by the Attorney General of Federation.

“The charge is still pending and some of the issues arising thereof are on appeal at the Supreme Court. While the charge is pending, the EFCC commenced this charge and never served any of the parties but we saw a media publication that the EFCC had filed a charge in respect of the matter at Lagos High Court.”

“Going by this, we have raised a preliminary objection dated 15th of January 2018 and filed on the same date that this charge is an abuse of court process. Again, none of the defendants have been served with the charge. There is no proof of service before the court. We are bound by the court’s record. We heard of this charge through media publications and as a result decided to check and upon discovery that it is true we filed the preliminary objection. Also, going by the law as laid by the appellate court’s it is the duty of the prosecution to produce the defendant in court and until then the court cannot exercise any jurisdiction over the defendant nor have the jurisdiction to curtail the Defendant’s liberty.” Mbadugha urged the court to discountenance prosecution counsel’s prayer for counsel be ordered to produce the 2nd Defendant as the court cannot compel counsels to produce the defendants.

Justice Olusola Williams, while striking out the matter, said that EFCC was not ready to take the preliminary objection; and that a criminal matter can always be instituted whenever the prosecution is prepared.

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“The prosecution is well aware that it is its duty to produce a defendant in court,” the judge said
“This Court is not inclined to continue to waste the time of Lagos taxpayers. This court cannot continue to waste precious time calling a case that is going nowhere.”

“It is a criminal matter that can be instituted anytime. I advise that the prosecution gets its acts together before coming to court. I am inclined to strike this case and I so do.”
It must be noted that Innoson had always challenged the jurisdiction of the Lagos High Court to hear the EFCC fraud charge on the grounds that the charge is an abuse of court process because the same charge on the same subject matter, transactions and issues is pending at the Federal High Court Lagos Division between the same parties in charges no FHC/1/565C/2015.