EFCC: We won’t transfer Akinjide’s N650m case to Ibadan

The anti-graft agency said motions filed by Akinjide’s co-accused, Senator Ayo Ademola Adeseun and Chief (Mrs) Olanrewaju Otiti, seeking the transfer of the case to the Ibadan Division of the Federal High Court was unmeritorious and should be dismissed. Arguing the counter affidavits filed by the commission against the two motions yesterday, EFCC’s lawyer, Nnaemeka Omewa, maintained that the defendants’ rights of being charged in a court within 40kilometre radius of where the alleged offence was committed has been upheld with the filing of a charge against them at a Federal High Court in Ibadan. He added that all the defendants were also duly arraigned at a Federal High Court in Ibadan before Akinjide’s petition to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Abdul- Kafarati, led to the transfer of the case to Lagos. “The matter was transferred to Lagos based on the complaints of the first defendant (Akinjide) and the position was never contested by her co-accused. “It was after the matter has been transferred to Lagos and proceedings had started with the prosecution calling two witnesses that the two defendants suddenly woke up from their slumber asking that the matter be transferred back to Ibadan. “Investigation of this case was done in Lagos and the prosecution has followed the Constitution in arraigning the defendants in Ibadan before the first defendant petitioned the Chief Judge for the transfer of the case to Lagos”, Omewa said. He further noted that Section 98 (1) (2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) equally forbids the Chief Judge from transferring a case in which the prosecution has already called witness.]]>