A Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday fixed February 12 for hearing in a suit filed against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by embattled former Managing Director of Intercontinental Bank, Erastus Akingbola,
Intercontinental Bank was taken over by Access Bank, after Akingbola was alleged to have been involved with unethical practices that resulted in the bank’s near-collapse.
Akingbola had also taken the EFCC to court over the agency’s seizure of his property, joining EFCC Chairman, Mr Ibrahim Lamorde and one Mr E.L Etudo as respondents in the suit, but the case could not be heard on Friday because Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia, the new judge handling it, was indisposed.
The case was filed by Akingbola on March 29, 2012, alleging that the respondents denied him access to his property, the ‘Amazing Grace Plaza’ and further faulting the action of the EFCC in appointing Etudo as an agent to manage the seized property.
Akingbola claimed the EFCC had no right to seize the property since it had not been forfeited to the Federal Government by any order of the court.
At one of the sittings, Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako, who had presided over it, had ruled that EFCC had no right to seize property, stating that it should instead have approached the court to appoint someone to manage it pending the conclusion of Akingbola’s criminal trial.
Justice Murtala-Nyakohad stressed that the law on forfeited properties was that it should be placed under seal.
Restraining Akingbola from dealing with the properties in any manner whatsoever in line with the interim order of court given in 2009, the judge said that even though the properties had been forfeited to the Federal Government in the interim, EFCC did not have the mandate to unilaterally appoint someone to manage the properties.
