The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has frozen the bank accounts of 32 individuals and companies linked to the 10-day #EndBadGovernance protest organized nationwide, pending the investigation and prosecution of the case.
Justice Emeka Nwite, in a ruling on the ex-parte motion moved by counsel for the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Mohammed, also ordered the banks to apprehend the account holders or any person transacting business on the said accounts.
Mr Nwite, who granted the motion dated and filed on August 20, directed the banks to contact the Nigeria Police Force through the telephone numbers 08035179870 and 07032449912 when arrest is made.
“That the banks are hereby directed by this honourable court to issue details of the account package(s) and to place a Post-No-Debit (PND) on the accounts, disable the ATM while allowing inflow into the said accounts as from the date of this court order,” the judge declared.
Though the ruling was made on Thursday, the certified true copy of the order was sighted on Sunday in Abuja.
The account numbers affected include 4010073491 (Fidelity Bank), 1255130019 (Access Bank), 0006084167 (Abbey Mortgage Multipurpose Bank Plc), 0821931299 (FCMB), 1012007655 (FCMB), 0000575573 (A AG Mortgage Bank Plc), 1007871587 (UBA), 2037117333 (UBA), 5421031104 (ECOBANK ) and 0024541201 (Union Bank).
Others are 1022899050 (UBA), 8755008491 (Branch International Services Ltd), 5630208636 (Fidelity), and 4936992542 (Fairmoney Microfinance Bank).
Others are 8755008499 (Branch International Financial Services Ltd), 2088228208 (UBA), 2115678044 (Zenith Bank), 3041823452 (First Bank), 1011828445 (New Edge Finance), 3024402748 (Fusrt Bank), 0161502459 (GTBank), and 0040580047 (Access Bank).
They also include 0250291788 (Wema Bank), 6112464260 (Branch International Financial Services Ltd), 1000774097 (Sparkle Microfinance Bank Ltd), 3434649965 (Fairmoney Microfinance Bank), 2013556714 (KUDA Microfinance Bank), 3104962864 (Polaris Bank), 6112464267 (Branch International Finance Services Lit), 8137051249 (OPAY), and 8137051249 (PALMPAY).
The IGP, in the application marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1219/2024, had listed PA.LIN.HO Global Service Ltd, Innocent Angel Lovet Chinyere Nkiru, Obidient Movement Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Innocent Angel Lovet, and Great Communicators Champion Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd as the first to fifth respondents, respectively.
Others include Great Communicators Champion Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd, Opaluwa Eleojo Bob-Simon, NUEE state chapter, Adeyemi Abiodun Abayomi, Adaramoye Michael Tobiloba, and Popoola Festus as sixth to 11th respondents, respectively.
Mr Mohammed, in his four-ground argument, said the accounts contained in the schedule with respect to which reliefs sought are subject to investigation and are reasonably suspected to be warehousing proceeds of unlawful activities or fraud.
“If there is any dealing with the account by way of withdrawal or transfer to another account by the persons under investigation/investigator and the persons that have absolute power to deal with the account will render nugatory any consequential order(s) which the court may make at the conclusion of this application,” he said.
According to him, the accounts are used to promote the offence of criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, cyberbullying and cyberstalking, which was illegally transferred to the account of the accused persons now at large.
“That the accused persons were involved in hosting another country’s flag in order to undermine the sovereignty of the Nigerian state,” he added.
In the affidavit in support of the motion ex-parte, Gregory Woji, a detective attached to the Force Criminal Investigation Department, deposed that preliminary investigation revealed that some suspects arrested were being recruited by some financiers to cause mayhem and destroyed life and property.
Mr Woji said preliminary investigation further revealed that the financiers were sending money to recruit the indigents and other vulnerable individuals to carry banners and overthrow a democratically elected government.
According to him, the preliminary investigation further reveals that some foreign nationals were the arrowheads in the unscrupulous act of treasonable felony and promoting terrorism financing in Nigeria.
He said the act of the accused persons is akin to the offence of criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, cyberstalking and cyberbullying.
He said it is the function of the police to stop this act by apprehending the offenders as an offence to one is an offence to all.
“The intelligence report gathered so far reveals that the suspects are making an effort to transfer or withdraw money from the accounts, and unless this honourable court grants this order, otherwise, the investigation will be jeopardized.
“That it will be in the interest of justice to grant this request by freezing the account of the said suspects and order their immediate arrest on sighting them pending the outcome of the investigation and possible prosecution,” Mr Woji averred.
(NAN)
