The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has dismissed the case against the former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Justice Yusuf Halilu, while delivering the judgment, described the EFCC’s charges of fraud and abuse of office against Okorocha as an abuse of judicial process on the grounds that the anti-graft agency had filed a similar charge against the defendant at the Federal high court.
It will be recalled that Justice Stephen Pam of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt had in a 2021 judgment, quashed the EFCC charge against Okorocha after it declared as illegal, unlawful, null and void the investigation upon which the charge was based on.
Subsequently, the judge prohibited EFCC from further prosecuting the former Governor over any alleged offence relating to the said investigation.
However, on May 24, 2022, the Commission arrested Okorocha after over six hours of siege at his Abuja residence and subsequently arraigned him and six others before the Federal High Court in Abuja, over the alleged embezzlement of the sum of N2.9 billion belonging to the Government of Imo State.
