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YOU CAN’T EVADE TRIAL- EFCC TELLS
EL-RUFAI Newsdiaryonline
Wed Feb 23,2011
 The
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday,
February 23rd, 2011 urged a Federal Capital Territory High Court
in Abuja to ignore all thetrial-evading antics of a former
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory , FCT, Mallam Nasir
El-Rufai and grant it leave to arraign him and two others on a
newly amended eight count charge. The two other accused persons
are, Atine Jubrin, former Director-General, Abuja Geographic
Information System( AGIS) and Ismail Iro, former General-
Manager, AGIS.
Counsel to the EFCC, Adebayo Adelodun (SAN) submitted that El-Rufai
and the other accused persons are newly brought before the
court on the basis of eight amended charges and
urged the court to allow their immediate
arraignment. Adelodun
vehemently opposed the plank upon which the defence counsel
based their objection to the arraignment saying that the
objection was doomed since it was based on an un-reported
decision of a Court of Appeal. He also said that, since the
judgment was appealed against and was set aside, it ceased to
be good law upon which any objection can be validly premised.
Messrs Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and Kanu Agabi (SAN), both
Counsel to the accused persons had opposed the arraignment on
the ground that the charge in which the accused persons were
brought to court was done under a law that was null and void and
therefore lacked merit.
They specifically said that the ICPC Act, 2003, under which the
accused persons were charged, had been repealed and could
therefore not be used as a legal platform for their trial. In
response, Adelodun stated that, “as a matter of law and fact,
the objection on this ground has become mute, spent and academic
by reason that the prosecution had filed an amended charge.” He
also said that the offences the accused persons were charged are
known to written laws therefore it is not correct to say they
were charged under a non- existing law.
Adelodun further said that the prosecution reserved the right to
amend its charge at any stage of the process and that Section
208 of the Criminal Prosecution Code (CPC) empowers the court to
allow any such amendment. Besides, he contended that filing of
the amended charge means that any defect on the previous one was
no longer consequential.
On the ground that EFCC does not have the power to prosecute the
accused persons under the ICPC Act and that the offences over
which they were charged do not constitute financial
crimes, the EFCC counsel said that Section 46 of the EFCC Act is
wide and elastic enough to cover the offences they were accused
to have committed. Adelodun said that the summary of the charge
was “the usage of office and position to gratify, confer undue
advantage on self, relation and one another.
My lord, if this does not qualify as a form of corrupt practice
within the framework of Section 46, I wonder what does. So, I
urge the court to accept the amended charge and order the
accused to take their plea.”
The judge, after listening to all the parties, reserved ruling
on the applications till 28 March,2011
The
eight count charges are:
“That you Mallam Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai (M) between 13th day of
December, 2003 and 14th of December, 2007 or thereabout at the
Ministry of Federal capital territory, Abuja in the course of
and or in the performance of your official duties as the
Minister of the federal Capital Territory did use
your said Office and position to gratify and confer corrupt or
unfair advantage on your relation to wit your wife Hadiza Ahmed
El-Rufai by reallocating to her parts of the parcel of land
known as plot No 1201, Asokoro District (A4) Abuja, originally
allocated in the Federal Capital Territory Master plan to power
Holding company of Nigeria Plc for the construction of
transmitting/ injection sub-stations which fully and /or
intentionally revoked for that purpose, thereby committing an
offence contrary to and punishable under section 19 of the
corrupt and Other related Offences act, 2000.
This renewed vigour by the EFCC on the case against El
Rufai is bound to raise eyebrows.It is coming days after local
media reports had hinted that the FG was plotting to drop
charges against the former FCT minster.Interestingly, shortly
afterwards it has now become clearer that el Rufai is throwing
his weight behind the opposition CPC in the run up to the
April general elections.
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