Former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr. Olu Agunloye, has taken a legal stance in a bid to halt proceedings against him, as he approaches the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, seeking an injunction to restrain the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from prosecuting him over an alleged $6 billion fraud case.<\/p>\n
Agunloye, who is embroiled in a trial concerning the purported $6 billion Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station fraud, challenges the EFCC’s jurisdiction to pursue the case against him. Through his Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Adeola Adedipe, Agunloye raises multiple legal arguments in his motion on notice for preliminary objections to contest the EFCC’s authority to continue with the trial.<\/p>\n
He argues that the EFCC lacks both investigative and prosecutorial powers as outlined in Sections 6, 7, and 46 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act, 2004. Furthermore, Agunloye asserts that the allegations against him primarily stem from his actions as a public official, particularly concerning the award of a contract without proper budgetary provisions, approval, or cash backing. He maintains that these accusations do not fall under the purview of financial crimes within the EFCC’s mandate, citing legal precedents to bolster his position.<\/p>\n
During the recent court proceedings, Agunloye’s legal team moved to present the motion for preliminary objections, prompting opposition from the EFCC, which argued that the motion was premature for hearing. In response, Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie deferred the hearing on the preliminary objections to February 26, 2024.<\/p>\n
Agunloye faces seven charges related to the fraudulent award of a contract and official corruption. The EFCC alleges that he awarded a contract to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited without proper authorization and corruptly received funds from the company without due approval from the Federal Executive Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr. Olu Agunloye, has taken a legal stance in a bid to halt proceedings against him, as he approaches the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, seeking an injunction to restrain the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from prosecuting him over an alleged $6 billion fraud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":19405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19409,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19389\/revisions\/19409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}