The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been ordered to stop investigating or carrying out any planned action to prosecute a former Governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha.
Justice Stephen Pam of the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, gave the order on Tuesday during the hearing of the case involving Okorocha and the EFCC.
Okorocha, through his counsel, Ola Olanipekun, had approached the court seeking the enforcement of some orders earlier made in the lawmaker’s favour in a case between him and the EFCC.
Olanipekun said the court, on December 6, 2021, granted the prayers of his client and ordered the EFCC to stop the prosecution of Okorocha after faulting the process of investigation adopted by the agency.
The court had also prohibited the EFCC from investigating or carrying out any other action against the former governor, while asking the anti-graft agency to release his passport and any other travel documents.
At the resumption of proceedings on Tuesday, Olanipekun said he returned to the same court 4 to seek the protection of his client’s rights because the EFCC has refused to obey any of the three orders earlier made.
He accused the EFCC of filing new charges against his client recently, based on the same investigation that the court had invalidated in December.
Reacting, the EFCC counsel, N.A. Dodo, pleaded with the court for time to respond to the processes.
He denied that the EFCC was acting in defiance of the court’s decision, saying the commission had invited Okorocha to pick up his international passport and travel documents, but that the former Imo governor had failed to respond.
The trial judge, however, said he was not happy with the attitude of the EFCC on the matter, noting that he would not tolerate contempt.
Recall that the EFCC had, on January 31, filed a 17-count charge against the Senator representing Imo West before a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The charge against the former Imo governor came hours after he formally declared his presidential ambition in Abuja.
According to the EFCC, Okorocha allegedly conspired with others, including a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and five companies, to steal N2.9 billion public funds.
Days after the fresh charge was filed, Okorocha visited President Muhammadu Buhari to seek his intervention over the action of the anti-graft agency.
