Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Wednesday,\u00a0 July 17,\u00a0 2024\u00a0 turned down an application by a former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello seeking a stay of proceedings and stalling of his arraignment in the alleged \u00a0N80.2billion money laundering charge instituted against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Also, the court has asked the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee,\u00a0 LPDC, to investigate Bello\u2019s counsel, \u00a0Abdulwahab Mohammed, SAN and Adeola Adedipe, SAN, for professional misconduct for reneging on their undertakings to produce the former governor for arraignment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The court had on June 27, 2024 slated Wednesday for ruling on an application by the EFCC\u2019s lead counsel,\u00a0 Kemi Pinheiro , SAN, praying the court to hold \u00a0Mohammed and Adedipe for contempt of court\u00a0 At the resumed session of the court on Wednesday,\u00a0 Mohammed tried frantically to persuade the court to allow stay of proceedings \u00a0arguing that \u00a0appeals have been entered at the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Both prosecution and defence counsels held the court in fiery arguments over the ruling.\u00a0 Pinheiro submitted that Bello\u2019s lawyers were only trying to \u201carrest\u201d the ruling meant for Wednesday on their failed undertakings to produce their client for arraignment.\u00a0 He cited several authorities to establish the fact that since the matter brought before the appellate court had not been determined, the trial court should not halt proceedings on the matter before it.<\/p>\n
Ruling on the EFCC\u2019s application to hold Mohammed and Adedipe for contempt of the court in view of their failure to honour the undertakings they made to produce the former governor for arraignment,\u00a0 Justice Nwite asked the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, LPDC to investigate the two senior lawyers for professional misconduct.\u00a0 He stressed that Bello\u2019s lawyers failed to bring their client for arraignment against their assurances and undertakings before the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrdinarily, I would have taken this matter headon, but I would prefer to refer the matter to the Legal Practitioner\u2019s Disciplinary Committee to propose necessary recommendation and necessary sanctions against the counsels\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The judge also initially refused to grant the application of withdrawal of services to Bello by Adedipe.\u00a0 However, after passionate appeals by Pinheiro, he granted it but directed Adedipe to make a formal application before the court to that effect.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Meanwhile,\u00a0 Abdulwahab said he would try to bring Bello to court on the next adjourned date, though without taking any undertaking to that effect. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pinhero informed the court that the prosecution on its part would make the necessary arrangement to bring the former governor to court as the EFCC was making efforts to liaise with other sister security agencies to \u201cextract the defendant from the Kogi State Government house where he is hibernating\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Nwite thereafter adjourned the matter\u00a0till September 25, 2024\u00a0for arraignment.<\/p>\n
Bello is facing prosecution alongside his nephew, Ali Bello, Dauda Suleiman and Abdulsalam Hudu on 19-count charges\u00a0 bordering on money laundering to the tune of N80,246,470,089.88k( Eighty Billion, Two Hundred and Forty Six Million, Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand, Eighty-Nine Naira and Eighty- eight kobo).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Wednesday,\u00a0 July 17,\u00a0 2024\u00a0 turned down an application by a former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello seeking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n