NEWS: EFCC Has Not Dropped Charges Against Diezani & Others

EFCC Has Not Dropped Charges Against Diezani & Others

EFCC and Diezani Alison-Madueke

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) has refuted the reports
currently circulating in the social media, alleging that the Commission had dropped the criminal charge against Diezani Alison-Madueke - former minister of petroleum resources and other persons indicted for money laundering.

The Commission made a post earlier today on their Instagram page correct the notion and asked members of the public to disregard the alleged report speculating on social media that it is false and misleading. The charge is still before Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court, Lagos.

''The only development was that the Commission took a prosecutorial decision to split the initial 14-count charge to enable separate arraignment of the defendants following a spate of adjournments that prevented the arraignment of the defendants more than one year after the case was listed''.

The charges were first filed on November 28, 2018. Since then, every attempt to arraign the defendants had been frustrated by one excuse or the other. In more than four times that the matter was called for arraignment, it was either that Lanre Adesanya was sick and bedridden in a London Hospital or  Nnamdi Okonkwo was hypertensive and on admission in a hospital or  Stanley Lawson had had a domestic accident and could not appear in court.

It was clear that these recurring excuses were ploys to frustrate the arraignment. To get around this, the Commission took a deliberate decision, which was disclosed in open court, to separately prosecute the defendants in different courts. 

This explains why the four count amended charge brought against Dauda Lawal, a former executive director of First Bank, did not include other defendants, except the two who are at large (Diezani Alison-Madueke and Ben Otti).

source: @officialefcc