A Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday discharged and acquitted former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, of the money laundering charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo while delivering a ruling on a no-case submission filed by the former AGF, held that the EFCC failed to establish a prima facie, ‘sufficient evidence’, case against him.
“I find that there is no evidence to prove the alleged offences against the first defendant, Adoke, ” the judge said.
However, Justice Ekwo ruled that Aliyu Abubakar, the second defendant, has to open his defense because he has a case to answer.
EFCC had preferred a 14 counts charge against Adoke and an oil mogul, Aliyu Abubakar.
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In 2017, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had dragged Adoke and Abubakar Aliyu, a property developer, to court on a 14 counts charge bothering on alleged money laundering to the tune of about N300 million.
In the charge, the Anti-graft agency alleged that Adoke sometime in August 2013 in Abuja accepted a cash payment of the dollar equivalent of N300 million from Abubakar and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 16(2)(b) of the money laundering Prohibition Act 2011 as amended.
While the EFCC admitted before Ekwo that it was a mortgage that Adoke took from Unity Bank, it alleged before Justice Kutigi that the money was a bribe from the sale of the oil block by Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd in 2011.
On March 28, 2024, Kutigi pointed out the contradiction while dismissing the charges against Adoke and other defendants, chiding the EFCC for wasting the court’s time for four years.
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