A former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, on Tuesday terminated his fundamental human rights enforcement suit, in which he sought N1bn as compensation for his alleged unlawful detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Yakubu had filed the suit before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja following his arrest on February 8, 2017 and his continued detention by the EFCC with respect to the sums of $9,772,800 and £74,000 recovered from his house in Kaduna on February 3.
But his lawyer, Mr. Adeola Adedipe, informed the judge at the resumed hearing of the case on Tuesday that he had filed a notice of discontinuance of the suit on behalf of his client.
The lawyer cited the recent arraignment of the former NNPC boss and the bail subsequently granted him by the court as the grounds for filing the discontinuance notice.
Justice Mohammed, before whom Yakubu was also arraigned on March 16, struck out the suit after Adedipe moved his client’s motion on Tuesday.
The suit was partly heard and had been adjourned twice for continuation of hearing before the arraignment took place on March 16.
The plaintiff’s lead counsel, Mr. Ahmed Raji (SAN), had argued the suit, and the EFCC’s lawyer, Mr. Johnson Ojogbane, had canvassed his opposing arguments.
The counsel for the Attorney General of the Federation, (the second respondent), Mr. Tijani Gazali, was also canvassing his arguments in opposition to the suit during the previous proceedings when the matter was adjourned till Tuesday for further hearing.
However, in an affidavit accompanying the motion for discontinuance of the suit filed on Tuesday, a counsel in the plaintiff’s lawyer’s law firm, Dolapo Kehinde stated, “That in the course of conducting this proceedings, a criminal charge was preferred against the applicant in charge number FHC/CR/43/2017.
“On March 16, 2017, the applicant was arraigned before this honourable court on the said charge, and was consequently admitted to bail on March 21, 2017.
“Having been admitted to bail, the applicant does not intend to belabour this honourable court with the prosecution of this suit.”
The EFCC had on March 16 arraigned Yakubu on six counts of fraud and false declaration of assets, in relation to the sums of $9,772,800 and £74,000 (amounting to about) N3bn recovered from his Kaduna home.
He was remanded in Kuje Prison shortly after the arraignment till March 21 when he was granted N300m bail by the court.
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