More facts are now emerging on how James Ibori arranged a plea bargain settlement between Godwin Emefiele and the Federal Government, ENigeria Newspaper reports.
On Wednesday, ENigeria Newspaper reported that the arraignment of Godwin Emefiele the disgraced and embattled former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria was stalled after his case was not on the cause list of the court.
Wednesday’s stalled arraignment was the second time the Department of State failed to arraign the embattled former CBN governor since he was slammed with additional 20-count charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
ENigeria Newspaper reported that the Director of Public Prosecution at the Federal Ministry of Justice, Mohammed Abubakar had in an oral application, told Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court in Lagos that the illegal possession of firearm charge against Emefiele was being dropped.
This was consequent to a fresh 20 more charges filed against the disgraced former CBN governor in Abuja. Among the charges against Emefiele was an alleged N6.9 billion procurement fraud that landed him in court on Thursday, August 17, 2023, in Abuja for arraignment on the same day, except that it was stalled due to the absence of the second defendant, Sa’adatu Yarowho who was said to be indisposed at the time.
Sources at the court however revealed on Wednesday that the reason for the stalled arraignment borders on a possible ongoing plea bargain arrangement between Emefiele and the FG. Although this was not immediately verified, on Thursday fresh facts began to emerge on the widely reported plea bargain arrangement and the actor behind it.
An informed source who appealed to remain anonymous revealed that the ongoing plea bargain efforts of the former CBN governor were being allegedly arranged by James Ibori, a former governor of Delta State who is now an ally of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The development was followed by the withdrawal of a fundamental human rights suit filed by Emefiele’s brothers on Wednesday. The case which was filed against the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) by two brothers of Emefiele had been withdrawn.
The court’s vacation judge, Justice Emmanuel Okpe, had struck out the suit on Wednesday after the applicants through their lawyer informed the court of their decision to discontinue the case.
It was learnt from lawyers involved in the case that Emefiele opted to enter into plea bargaining with the prosecution team
Top sources on Thursday informed SaharaReporters that Ibori was the mastermind of the plea bargaining “scam” by the CBN governor.
“The plea bargain scam between the FG and Emefiele is being arranged by Ibori. He is arranging for Emefiele to plead to lesser charges and get released. He is arranging for him to forfeit an incomplete building in Abuja and pay a fine of N10million,” one of the sources said.
Earlier, the suspended CBN governor’s siblings – George Emefiele and Okanta Emefiele, had filed separate ex-parte motions at the court seeking order of the court to enforce their fundamental rights to freedom of movement among others by issuing perpetual injunction restraining the DSS from inviting, intimidating, harassing and arresting or detaining them in relation “to matters or body of matters which relates to the ongoing investigation of Mr. Godwin Emefiele and/or matters outside the constitutional and statutory mandate of the 1st respondent (DSS)”.
However, at the resumed hearing of the cases on Wednesday, counsel for the applicants, Grace Ehusani, informed the court that the applicants separately filed notice of discontinuance of the case.
The lawyer, however, did not explain to the court why the applicants decided to discontinue the cases.
The counsel for the DSS, Ibrahim Awo, who did not oppose the discontinuance applications by Emefiele’s brothers, however, urged the court to dismiss the case, instead of striking it out as requested by the applicants’ counsel.
The DSS counsel also demanded a substantial cost of N2 million against the applicants in favour of the respondents.
The counsel for the AGF, Maimuma Lami-Sheru, also concurred with the submission of the DSS counsel and also demanded a N2 million cost.
Justice Okpe in his ruling struck out the cases and ordered that no cost should be paid by the applicants.
