The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told a Federal High Court, Lagos, that the request by former Enugu State Governor, Chimaroke Nnamani, to seek medical treatment abroad, was a ploy to delay his trial.<\/p>\n
Mr Kelvin Uzozie, the commission\u2019s counsel, made the assertion at the resumed hearing of the money laundering case against Nnamani.<\/p>\n
The ex governor had on Monday filed an application through his counsel, Mr Ricky Tarfa, seeking leave of the court to travel overseas for medical treatment.<\/p>\n
An affidavit deposed to by one Ayo Ambali, stated that sometime in 2008, Nnamani was diagnosed of \u201dhypercloclesterolemnia\u201d\u2013 which doctors described as a condition characterised by very high levels of cholesterol in the blood.<\/p>\n
He further stated that the accused was also diagnosed of a high level Serum Prostate Surface Antigem (SPA), for which he had been to the United States of America severally for medical treatment.<\/p>\n
He had urged the court to grant the accused leave to go for treatment abroad.<\/p>\n
But Uzozie said that the accused, who had previously been granted similar requests in 2008 and 2012, had now adopted this tactics to delay his trial.<\/p>\n
According to him, when the previous leave was granted in 2008, Nnamani lingered in the United States beyond the stipulated period.<\/p>\n
The counsel said it took the assistance of the America security agencies to facilitate the repatriation of the ex-governor.<\/p>\n
He said that even when Nnamani returned to the country, he failed to surrender his international passport to the EFCC, as directed by the court.<\/p>\n
Uzozie also said that the accused had not in any way shown that the illness could not be treated in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
He, therefore, urged the trial judge, Justice Mohammed Yunusa to dismiss the application and order the accused to face his trial.<\/p>\n
The defence counsel, however, told the court that Section 14 of the Evidence Act, required an accused to state the circumstances of his illness in certain situations.<\/p>\n
Tarfa said that the accused has by his application, sufficiently given details of the illness for which he required routine medical treatment abroad.<\/p>\n
He, therefore, urged the court to grant the accused leave to travel overseas for treatment.<\/p>\n
Yunusa, however, reserved his ruling on this application for April 17.<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Nnamani is facing trial alongside seven others, on 105-count charge of money laundering.<\/p>\n
Others\u00a0 are: Sunday Anyaogu, Rainbownet (Nig.) Ltd, Hillgate (Nig.) Ltd, Cosmos FM, Capital City Automobile (Nig.) Ltd, Renaissance University Teaching Hospital and Mea Mater Elizabeth High School.<\/p>\n
The accused were re-arraigned on March 7, following the transfer of Justice Charles Archibong to another division of the court.<\/p>\n
Yunusa now becomes the third trial judge to hear the matter.<\/p>\n
The first judge was Justice Tijani Abubakar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told a Federal High Court, Lagos, that the request by former Enugu State Governor, Chimaroke Nnamani, to seek medical treatment abroad,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n