BREAKING NEWS, Judiciary
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GOVERNMENT Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, a former militant leader of Niger Delta, wants the Court of Appeal in Lagos to order Justice Ibrahim Buba, a judge of the federal high court in Lagos to withdraw from the fraud charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Tompolo and nine others are facing fraud trial of N45.9bn before Justice Buba.
Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, one of Tompolo’s counsels, said in a statement on Tuesday, March 15, that his client had since Friday, March 11, filed the appeal before the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal.
Hence, Adegboruwa said he expected Buba to cease action on Tompolo’s case in deference to the appellate court.
Since the 40 counts were filed by the EFCC against Tompolo and his co-suspects in January this year, efforts to arraign him before the judge had proved abortive as the accused repeatedly shunned the summons issued on him to appear in court. This has prompted Justice Buba to issue a bench warrant against Tompolo twice and ordered his arrest.
The EFCC had subsequently declared him wanted through a newspaper advertorial and obtained an order to confiscate his assets pending the time he would show up and submit himself to the court.
But Tompolo, who is contending that the summons were not properly served on him, had on February 8, urged Justice Buba to set aside the warrant issued on January 14 for his arrest.
The judge, however, rejected his application and re-validated the arrest warrant.
— Mar 15, 2016 @ 17:30 GMT
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