EFCC to arraign ex-governor, Ladoja in Court on Dec. 14 over N4.7bn Fraud

Justice Mohammed Idris of a Federal High Court in Lagos has fixed December 14, 2016 for the second arraignment of a former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, who was accused of N4.7bn fraud, Punch reports.

To be arraigned alongside Ladoja is Waheed Akanbi.

Justice Idris fixed the date of Ladoja and Akanbi’s arraignment on Friday after dismissing their application seeking a stay of proceedings on the grounds that they had an appeal at the Supreme Court.

Ladoja and Akanbi were present in court.

Justice Idris consequently declined the application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to issue a warrant for their arrest.

“The court will not make any order for arrest in the light of the appearance of the accused persons in court,” the judge held.

The accused were first arraigned in 2008.

They had subsequently challenged the competence of the charges filed against them by the EFCC all the way to the Supreme Court.

But the Supreme Court on April 15, 2015 dismissed their appeal for being incompetent pursuant to the provisions of Order 6 Rule 3(2) of the Supreme Court Rules 1999.

Following the dismissal of the appeal, the EFCC moved to open the case and to re-arraign Ladoja and Akanbi again before Justice Idris.

But Ladoja’s lawyer, Mr. Bolaji Onilenla, had opposed the bid by the EFCC to arraign his client the second time, saying he had gone back to re-list the appeal.

He said he re-listed the appeal on October 27, 2016 on the grounds that the appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court without hearing it.

Onilenla insisted that his client had yet to exhaust the window of appeal open to him at the Supreme Court and contended that the EFCC could not cut Ladoja’s right of appeal short by rushing to re-open the case.

“What we are saying in effect, My Lord, is that our right of appeal still endures and it cannot be purportedly cut short on the altar of overzealousness of the prosecution to jump-start the trial of the case,” he told Justice Idris.

But in a ruling on Friday, Justice Idris dismissed the argument, holding that the request to stay proceedings pending the outcome of the re-listed appeal before the Supreme Court was against the provisions of Section 306 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.