Transfer Yakubu’s seized funds to registrar’s account, court orders EFCC, CBN.

Transfer Yakubu’s seized funds to registrar’s account, court orders EFCC, CBN.

A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to release the $9,773,200.00 and £74,000 seized from former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu.

Justice Inyang Ekwo yesterday ordered the EFCC and the CBN to release the money to be deposited in an interest yielding account in the name of the court’s Chief Registrar pending when parties exhaust their right of appeal.

Justice Ekwo held that the order became imperative because the EFCC and the CBN were not truthful about the actual whereabouts of the money.

The money was seized from Yakubu’s Kaduna home on February 3, 2017. The EFCC thereafter charged him with money laundering, and he was arraigned before a Federal High Court in Abuja on March 16, 2017, on a six-count charge.

At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, Yakubu made a no-case submission and, in a May 16, 2019 ruling, Justice Ahmed Mohammed discharged the defendant on counts 5 and 6.

Justice Mohammed also ordered him to enter his defence for the remaining four counts, a decision he appealed at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

The Court of Appeal, in its April 24, 2020 judgment, partially allowed the appeal, discharged him on counts one and two, and ordered him to enter his defence for counts three and four.