{"id":17552,"date":"2019-05-05T15:30:46","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T15:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=17552"},"modified":"2019-05-05T15:30:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T15:30:46","slug":"icpc-ordered-to-unfreeze-firms-bank-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=17552","title":{"rendered":"ICPC ordered to unfreeze firm\u2019s bank accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Martins Odeh\u00a0<\/strong>(NAN<\/strong>)
\nFederal High Court, Abuja has ordered ICPC) to immediately unfreeze bank accounts and released seized assets belonging to Blaid Construction Limited and its director, Mrs. Ochuko Momoh.
\nThis is contained in an enrolled order in a suit marked: FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/132\/2019 and made available to newsmen on Sunday in Abuja by Mr Ade Adedeji (SAN), Counsel for both the firm and Momoh.
\nThe presiding Judge, Justice Binta Nyako also held that the anti-corruption body should release all the seized properties of the plaintiffs to them.
\nThe judge said the ICPC went ahead to carry out those actions despite being aware of the plaintiffs\u2019 suit against it taking such steps.
\nThe ICPC was alleged to have over reached itself by\u00a0 directing banks operated by the plaintiffs to freeze their accounts and seized their assets on claims that it was investigating their businesses.
\nNyako has frowned at ICPC\u2019s conduct, upon being told by plaintiffs\u2019 counsel that the defendant failed to comply with the March 5 order of the court directing it to reverse all its actions against the plaintiffs.
\nThe judge insisted that the court\u2019s order must be obeyed by the ICPC.
\nShe said: \u201cwhat I want you (ICPC) to do is to first, obey the court order and come back to the court later and seek any prayers.
\n\u201cThe defendant is to undo what it has\u00a0done as of the Feb.6 when the defendant became aware that this matter is before this court, failing which you will be in contempt of the court.
\n\u201cThe plaintiffs are to maintain status quo in respect of the affected accounts. Salaries can be paid out of the accounts, and nothing more,\u201d Nyako held.
\nNyako also noted that the law, that allowed the ICPC to freeze suspects\u2019 accounts for a up to one year without first, obtaining court\u2019s permission, was a bad law.
\nOn May 2, Adedeji informed the court that rather than comply with the court\u2019s order, the ICPC filed a notice of appeal against the order of the trial court after it was breached.
\nThe plaintiffs\u2019 counsel said such step was intended to dilute the power of the court and stall the hearing of his clients\u2019 suit.
\n\u201cWhat they did, that is regrettable, is that, after we filed this suit and they were served, they started taking steps to undermine the integrity of this court,\u201d Adedeji said.
\nAdedeji argued that the mere filing of a notice of appeal by a party no longer translated to staying of proceedings.
\nThe plaintiffs\u2019counsel further submitted that ICPC\u2019s action was simply contemptuous as it was aimed at disobeying the order of court.
\n\u201cIt is important that the court protects its integrity, by insisting that its order must be obeyed before it (ICPC) can be heard. It goes to the issue of rule of law.
\n\u201cIf the defendant had stopped at what they did before March 5 when the order was made, it would have been understandable.
\n\u201cIt now remains strange in law that they went further to ask other banks, on which the order were not served to place no debit order on the plaintiffs\u2019 accounts.
\n\u201cFor the past three months, over 270 employees of the plaintiffs, including those engaged in Blaid Farms, have not been paid. The plaintiffs are unable to access their accounts for the purpose of paying staff salaries.
\n\u201cThis is why we are praying this court to insist that the right thing be done, by directing that the order of court, made on March 5 be complied with.
\n\u201cWe apply, in the interest of justice, to direct the ICPC Chairman, who is the alter ego, to obey the court\u2019s order before taking any further steps\u2019\u2019, Adedeji said.
\nMr E.C. Otti, Counsel for ICPC, however, urged the court to consider Adedeji\u2019s allegations as misleading.
\nOtti insisted that his client was constrained in obeying the court\u2019s order to release the money in the banks.
\nHe argued that Section 45 of the ICPC Act, 2000 allowed the commission to freeze accounts for 12 months without any court order.
\nNAN reports that June 10 was fixed for the hearing of the substantive suit.
\nThe plaintiffs had accused the ICPC of engaging in witch-hunt, and therefore challenged its powers, under the ICPC Act, to investigate the dealings of private individuals and entities not connected with public institutions.
\nThe\u00a0plaintiffs are also challenging ICPC for continuing to hunt them after they secured a judgment against it on Nov.6, 2017 on similar matter at the FCT High Court.
\nMomoh in a supporting affidavit, averred that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and ICPC separately investigated the plaintiffs between 2015 and 2017 on the same issues and cleared them of any wrong doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Martins Odeh\u00a0(NAN) Federal High Court, Abuja has ordered ICPC) to immediately unfreeze bank accounts and released seized assets belonging to Blaid Construction Limited and its director, Mrs. Ochuko Momoh. This is contained in an enrolled order in a suit marked: FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/132\/2019 and made available to newsmen on Sunday in Abuja by Mr Ade Adedeji […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}