Yesterday, February 12, a high court in the Federal Capital Territory, located in Apo, scheduled a hearing on February 26, 2024, to consider a motion filed by Olu Agunloye contesting the authority of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to bring charges against him.
The former minister of power and steel, Agunloye, is charged with participating in a $6 billion contract fraud.
The EFCC claimed that Agunloye, a minister of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration from 1999 to 2003, had unlawfully granted a contract on a Build, Operate and Transfer basis for the construction of the 3,960 megawatt Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station.
The agency informed the court that Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited was awarded the contract without any budgetary support, approval, or financial guarantee.
It was also claimed that Agunloye had dishonestly accepted a N3.6 million bribe from the business he had given the contract to. The defendant, who had additionally held the position of Minister of State for Defense, entered a not guilty plea to the seven counts that were brought against him.
During the resumption of the case’s proceedings yesterday, the 76-year-old defendant questioned the EFCC’s authority to trial him for the alleged offenses through a motion designated M/3736/2024. He argued that the EFCC Act, 2004 denied the agency the investigative and prosecutorial authority necessary to begin the case against him.
In addition, he insisted that the offenses included his actions as a public servant, his purported disregard for orders from the president, and the purported falsification of a letter dated May 22, 2003.
He argues that these claims are not financial crimes, which the EFCC is authorized to look into and prosecute under sections 6, 7, and 46 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, as well as in accordance with the ruling in Nwobike v. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2022) by the Supreme Court.
Agunloye has since filed a second motion asking the court to change the bail requirements it imposed on him on January 11—namely, that his sureties show proof that they are the owners of property valued at N300 million—and to stop the anti-graft agency from approaching, intimidating, or bothering his sureties.
In his statement to the court, the defendant claimed that the EFCC had “repeatedly harassed, threatened, and invited his sureties for investigation.” He claimed that this action was motivated by the sureties’ “bad faith” in withdrawing their suretyship, which would have created an unfair playing field for the case’s prosecution.
In order to hear the applications, trial judge Jude Onwuegbuzie postponed the case to February 26, 2024.
