Federal High Court presided over by Hon. Justice Inyang Ekwo on Tuesday in suit no: FHC/ABJ/CS/1635/2019 ruled that Magistrates are divested with the power under the Law to freeze bank accounts.
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The Court held that “a Magistrate lacks the powers to make Bankers orders and/or order freezing or enabling a post no debit on bank accounts pursuant to non-existent/repealed section 7 of the Banker‘s Order Act 1847.”
The suit which was instituted by five children of the late Chief E. A. Esiso, namely Mrs Eunice Oddiri, Beauty Ogbodu, Chief Sunny Esiso, Edirin Esiso, and Mrs Emuobosa Consin, against one of their siblings, Yoma Esiso, four banks which had frozen their bank accounts, the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioner of Police in charge of the IGP Monitoring Unit.
They noted in that in September 2019, one of the landed assets of their late father in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, was sold and the proceeds were shared among the deceased’s children, including Yoma Esiso.
Yoma was said to have petitioned the police after which his five siblings were arrested and detained.
Meanwhile, after the plaintiffs were later released on bail, they realised that their accounts had been frozen by their various banks which claimed to have received letters authorising them to so do from the office of the Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner of the Police in charge of the IGP Monitoring Unit.
The banks said the letters from the IGP office were accompanied with a document called a ‘Bankers Order’ from a magistrates’ court, ordering the freezing/post no debit on the accounts.
However, the plaintiffs on 24th day of December, 2019 sued their banks – Zenith Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Guarantee Trust Bank and First Bank Place – along with the IGP, the IGP Monitoring Unit, and Yoma.
They contend among others in their suit that that the order to freeze/post-no-debit obtained from the magistrate’s court and placed on their accounts on the basis of a non-existent law was unlawful and void.
Delivering the judgement of the Court, Justice Ekwo ruled that GTB failed to effectively controvert the case of the plaintiffs as he held that there was no existing Nigerian law or relevant foreign law empowering magistrates to make such an order for freezing of persons’ accounts.
He therefore declared that “the Bankers Order/Order freezing and/or enabling the post-no-debit” on the listed accounts of the plaintiffs “cannot be validly issued pursuant to a non-existent/repealed Bankers Order Act 1847 and any other irrelevant foreign law”.
Therefore , the Court ordered the four banks “to unfreeze the accounts of the plaintiffs and desist from further giving effect to the non-existent Bankers order served on the prompting of the 5th and 6th defendants (IGP and the IGP Monitoring Unit).”
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