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Abimbola Banjoko, the judge of the Abuja High Court,
will on October 26, decide if the alleged suppression of relevant
documents by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is
enough reason for her to discontinue a case filed against an accused,
Chima Ejekwolu, by the commission.

The commission, in April last year, filed a one-count
charge against Mr. Ejekwolu, a lawyer, accusing him of trying to
defraud his client by claiming a 10 percent charge for the EFCC.

The accused, however, filed a motion in November
asking the court to quash the charge against him. One of the reasons
Mr. Ejekwolu gave is that “there was a deliberate suppression of
relevant facts by the prosecution (EFCC), which misled the court into
granting the leave to prefer the charge.”

Ten percent cut

NEXT had in previous reports showed how the EFCC –
according to documents before the court – deliberately kept implicating
documents from the court, which showed that the commission’s chairman,
Farida Waziri, was involved in the 10 percent payment being allegedly
charged by the EFCC and its agents.

Though the commission denies this, Mr. Ejekwolu in an
affidavit before the court, stated that Mrs. Farida was not only
involved, but that he was threatened at the commission’s office to deny
her involvement.

Mild confusion, however, occurred in court as Mrs.
Banjoko had to decide on which counter affidavit to adopt as arguments
for the EFCC.

The commission, which had earlier filed a counter
affidavit on April 12 this year, filed another one on May 14. Saad
Abubakar, the EFCC lawyer, in his explanation to the court, denied
knowledge of the second counter-affidavit saying, “I am not aware of
it”, after which he withdrew it from the court.

In an interview with NEXT, Mr. Abubakar explained
that he withdrew the second counter affidavit because “you cannot file
two applications in the same proceeding,” saying someone from the
commission’s legal department had filed the second application not
knowing that he had already filed one.

This is, however, not the first time a department of
the EFCC is showing lack of coordination. The commission recently
admitted that a bag containing sensitive documents, recovered from the
home of a suspect, got missing when some of its officials boarded a
commercial flight from Lagos to Abuja.

Mr. Abubakar also explained that the EFCC might be
introducing more charges against Mr. Ejekwolu, as they are still going
on with their investigations.

He stated that Fred Holm, whom the EFCC claims Mr. Ejekwolu tried to defraud, would also appear as a witness.