The court freed Mr Okorocha of the N2.9 billion corruption charges after dismissing the charges filed by the anti-graft agency, citing abuse of the court process.
The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on Friday, discharged a former Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha, of corruption charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The judge, Yusuf Halilu, freed Mr Okorocha after dismissing the charges filed by the anti-graft agency, citing an abuse of court process.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this is the third time courts have freed Mr Okorocha in respect of alleged fraud and corruption said “to have been committed while he was the governor of the state from 2011 to 2019.”
Mr Halilu held that it was wrong for the EFCC to continue to file similar charges against a defendant in different courts when a court of competent iurisdiction had already given a verdict on the matter.
NAN reports that Stephen Pam of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt had, in a judgement in 2021, dismissed the EFCC’s charge against Mr Okorocha.
He declared the investigation upon which the charge was based as illegal, unlawful, null and void.
The judge then made an order prohibiting the EFCC from further prosecuting the former governor over any alleged offence relating to the said investigation.
The commission, however, on 24 May 2022, laid siege to Mr Okorocha’s residence in Abuja, arrested him and subsequently arraigned him and six others.
They were alleged to have embezzled the sum of N2.9 billion belonging to the government of Imo.
Mr Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja had, in a ruling delivered on 6 February, struck out the charge for contravening Section 105 (3) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015.
The court agreed with Mr Okorocha that an earlier judgement of a court of coordinate jurisdiction sitting in Port Harcourt in suit number: FHC/PH/FHR/165, between him and EFCC.
It restrained the agency from further hearing the alleged offence subsisted.