Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja on Tuesday berated the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for its untidy prosecution of the fraud and money laundering case against former Head of Service, Steve Oronsaye and others.
The EFCC had added 11 counts to the original 24 counts and also brought in additional defendants and witnesses.
The prosecution had added new defendants who had not been served with the fresh charges, namely, Global Services Limited, Cluster Logistic Limited, Kangolo Dynamic Cleaning Limited, Crew Investment & Construction Company Limited.
Although he admitted the charges as being properly filed, Justice Kolawole berated the prosecution for filing them only 24 hours to the date of hearing.
He said ; “I am only concerned that the state only realised in less than 24 hours to the date of hearing that it needed to bring an amended charge by not only increasing the counts from 24 in the original charge to 35 in the amended charge and to increase the number of counts from three to six.
“This is, in my view, a rather untidy manner in handling criminal prosecution. I daresay that it is in force with opinion expressed by the honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria that prosecution of corruption cases are often delayed because the investigation is often driven by arrest-led investigation rather than investigation-led arrest.
“By this, it seems that it was after the defendants herein were arrested and charged to court that investigation carried out showed that the state needs to bring charges against three other defendants and increase the number of counts.”
Justice Kolawole then fixed Wednesday November 25 for the re-arraignment of the defendants while he ordered the prosecution to immediately serve the fresh charges on the defendants.
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