Former Governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha has been freed from corruption charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Friday, July 14th, 2023 discharged the former governor from the charge after dismissing the charges filed by the anti-graft agency for being an abuse of court processes.
According to the court, it was wrong for EFCC to continue to file similar charges against a defendant in different courts, particularly when a court of competent jurisdiction had already decided on the matter.
It would be recalled that Justice Stephen Pam of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt had in a 2021 judgment, quashed the EFCC charge against Okorocha after it declared as illegal, unlawful, null and void the investigation upon which the charge was based on.
The judge subsequently prohibited EFCC from further prosecuting the former governor over any alleged offence relating to the said investigation.
However, on May 24, 2022, the EFCC arrested Okorocha after over six hours of siege at his Abuja residence and subsequently arraigned him and six others before the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Okorocha and others were alleged to have embezzled the sum of N2.9 billion belonging to the Government of Imo State.
However, Justice Inyang Ekwo, in a ruling delivered on February 6, struck out the charges for contravening Section 105 (3) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, which gives the Attorney-General of the Federation the power to recall a case.
Justice Ekwo held that the directive of the AGF in a letter dated September 12, 2022, to EFCC to forward the case file with its comments on the issues for consideration and review was binding on the commission.
The court agreed with Okorocha that the earlier judgement of a court of coordinate jurisdiction sitting in Port Harcourt in suit number FHC/PH/FHR/165 between him and EFCC restraining the agency from further proceeding on the alleged offence subsists.
Dissatisfied, the commission approached the High Court of the FCT and filed another set of charges against the former governor.
But Okorocha, through his lawyer, Chief Ola Olanipekun (SAN), challenged the competency of the charge in an application, claiming it was an abuse of court processes.
