{"id":92209,"date":"2024-11-22T09:07:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T09:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=92209"},"modified":"2024-11-29T12:31:25","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T12:31:25","slug":"mystery-with-three-passports-seized-former-house-of-reps-member-makes-trips-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=92209","title":{"rendered":"Mystery: With three passports seized, former House of Reps chief makes trips abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

His three passports were deposited in the court, but somehow, a former House of Representatives chief, Mr. Nicholas Mutu, facing a 13-count charge of money laundering, has been able to freely travel in and out of thecountry.<\/span><\/p>\n

How possible? A fourth passport. This is the situation before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, which also for months could not trace the three passports of the former representative in its custody.<\/span><\/p>\n

But on Thursday, <\/b><\/span>Justice\u00a0<\/span>F. Giwa Ogunbanjo<\/span><\/span>\u00a0expressed displeasure upon discovery that Mutu has been\u00a0jetting\u00a0out of the country\u00a0with an undeclared passport and without\u00a0the express permission of the court\u00a0in violation of\u00a0his bail conditions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mutu,\u00a0who served as Chairman,\u00a0House of Representatives Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), between August 2014 and August 2016\u00a0is facing prosecution by the\u00a0Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC,\u00a0\u00a0on money laundering\u00a0charges to the tune of N320million.<\/span><\/p>\n

Justice<\/span>\u00a0Ogunbanjo<\/span><\/span>\u00a0during proceedings\u00a0 noted\u00a0that\u00a0the defendant\u2019s\u00a0overseas\u00a0 travel\u00a0without\u00a0the court\u2019s\u00a0permission\u00a0was intolerable\u00a0and that such contempt\u00a0of\u00a0her court\u00a0would not be\u00a0overlooked.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“There is no justification for the defendant to flout the order of this honorable court. The order is that the defendant must not leave this country without express permission from the court and it appears that he has left without permission or even notification.\u00a0I\u00a0am not going to sweep it under the carpet,\u201d she said.<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
\nMutu\u2019s unauthorised journeys became known\u00a0when prosecution counsel, Ekele Iheanacho, SAN informed the court that investigation by the\u00a0Nigerian\u00a0 Immigration Service showed that the defendant has been traveling out of the country with a passport that was not among the three\u00a0he\u00a0surrendered to the EFCC, and which the Commission deposited with the court.<\/span><\/p>\n

While praying for the revocation of the defendant\u2019s bail,\u00a0Iheanacho argued that,\u00a0\u201cThe provision of Section 173 of the Administration of Criminal Justice\u00a0Act and Section 175 allow this court to revoke his bail, because with another passport, the defendant can take off at any time, having admitted that he has another\u00a0passport and has travelled with it. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Also for the defence to make an assertion against the EFCC that they did not collect all his passports at the time he was in our office has no basis, because the bail conditions required\u00a0that he gets express permission from the court. So I urge this honourable court to revoke his bail.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An EFCC statement on the court’s proceedings adds: “Until it was found during the proceedings of\u00a0Wednesday,\u00a0November 20, 2024, through a thorough search of the repositories of the court\u2019s Registry, the whereabouts of Mutu\u2019s three passports could not be traced for months on end, prompting a blame game between the court and the prosecution and resulting in the slow progress of the trial following the judge\u2019s insistence that the passport must be traced and produced. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Upon a successful tracing of the passports in\u00a0the court\u2019s Registry on Wednesday, Justice\u00a0<\/span>Ogunbanjo<\/span><\/span>\u00a0during the proceedings of Thursday, November 21, 2024, tendered an \u00a0apology to the prosecution<\/span><\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Said the judge: \u201cI would like to apologise to Iheanacho.\u00a0This situation\u00a0has\u00a0put us through\u00a0so much\u00a0embrasement.\u00a0We have always thought that the passports were not\u00a0in\u00a0our custody.\u00a0Yesterday, when I was informed that the\u00a0Registry found the passports,\u00a0I was shocked, considering everything that has happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“On behalf of the Registry of the court,\u00a0I apologise to you; everything looked like you haven\u2019t delivered the passport. I must also advise that when you bring processes or documents to court, you must attach proper acknowledgement to show that you deposited them.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, the judge\u00a0ordered the defendant to deposit all his passports with the\u00a0court\u00a0registrar and held that he must not travel\u00a0out of the country\u00a0until the court gets to the\u00a0root of his overseas trips in violation of his bail conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The matter was adjourned to February 17, 18, 2024 following an affidavit filed by defence counsel, P.I.N Ikwueto, SAN, to which the prosecution asked for time to study it and respond appropriately.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His three passports were deposited in the court, but somehow, a former House of Representatives chief, Mr. Nicholas Mutu, facing a 13-count charge of money laundering, has been able to freely travel in and out of thecountry. How possible? A fourth passport. This is the situation before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":91391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[164,6861,97],"class_list":["post-92209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-efcc","tag-mutu","tag-passports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92209","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=92209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}