Court Freezes Ozekhome’s Account with N75m

MIKE Ozekhome, SAN, a Lagos-based human rights lawyer, appears to be in trouble. The Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday, February 7, ordered the temporary forfeiture of the sum of N75 million found in his account domiciled with Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB.

The money which was discovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, was suspected to be proceeds of illegal deals. Justice AbdulAziz Anka, presiding judge gave the order on Tuesday when he delivered ruling in a motion ex-parte filed by the anti-graft agency. The motion sought that Ozakhome’s account be temporary frozen on the ground that the money deposited in his account on December 15, 2016, was suspected to be proceeds of crime.

The application was filed before the court by Rotimi Oyedepo. Arguing the motion, Idris Mohammed, a counsel to the EFCC, informed the court that the application was brought before the court pursuant to section 29 of the EFCC Act. Idris said that three exhibit marked exhibit 01, 02 and 03 are attached with the motion ex-parte in addition to an affidavit of urgency sworn to by Tosin Owobo, an investigator of the agency. He urged the court to grant the application ordering temporary forfeiture of the account for 120 days. Acceding to the request of the EFCC, Justice Anka ordered that Ozekhome’s account with the sum of N75 million domicile with Guaranty Trust bank be forfeited for 120 days. The judge also ordered that any party not satisfied with the ruling could appeal.