Ewa Okpo, a constitutional attorney, has referred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s tactics in their continuing legal battle with Alhaji Yahaya Bello, the former governor of Kogi State, as a “trial by mischief.”
The attorney explicitly said that it was improper for the EFCC to try to arrest the former governor in the first place when it was aware that there was a restraining order in place that had not yet been lifted during an interview on Arise TV’s morning program on Saturday.
He said that the misuse of the legal system was at the heart of the entire “drama.”
“I think that it is a rather unfortunate narrative for Nigeria, and to summarize the whole of this drama in legal terms would be to just say, look, this is an abuse of the court process.
“Why do I say abuse of court process? To successfully prosecute anybody in Nigeria, in this case, the EFCC is prosecuting Yahaya Bello; there are six categories of laws that you must follow.
“The ground law being the Constitution, administration of Criminal Justice Act, the law that empowers the prosecutor, in this case, EFCC Act; the law that defines the offence and the punishment, in this case, Money Laundering Act; and then the law of the courts with jurisdiction.
”In this case, that would be the Federal High Court Act, Practice Directive and the rest of it that guide proceedings at the Federal High Court, and, of course, the Evidence Act and other ancillary legislations.
”Now what is expected of the EFCC in this instance, where you follow all of these laws put together? They ought to have at first invited the suspect (officially), in the person of Mr Yahaya Bello; when he refuses to honour the invite; EFCC does not even need to get a warrant from the court; it is an administrative power to issue a warrant,” he said.
He said the EFCC did not follow the correct legal processes in this case, in accordance with all the measures he listed.
”Sadly, you know, they rather attempted to arrest the man when they could not arrest him. Being smart, I must give it to Yahaya Bello; he got his lawyers, and they ran to the court and got an order restraining the EFCC.
”Now you must understand because I think that what the EFCC is trying to do now is what can be described as trial by mischief,” he stated.
In addition, Okpo stressed that court orders prohibiting law enforcement from intimidating or detaining people ought to be adhered to, and that the courts are not bound by these orders.
He criticized the EFCC for disobeying the court’s directives and emphasized the necessity of accountability in law enforcement.
In addition, Okpo praised the court’s involvement, emphasizing that it encouraged respect for the law and acted as a vital check on the activities of law enforcement.
“Now, the EFCC is the watchdog. We need the EFCC to function in Nigeria. But in the course of them being the watchdog, who watches them? And so when there is an order, EFCC, you cannot correct wrong by doing wrong.
“Since there was an order restraining the EFCC, they had no business attempting to arrest Mr. Yahaya Bello,” he said.
