Alleged N7.1b Fraud: We Are Still After Orji Kalu; He Was Neither Discharged Nor Acquitted – Bawa, EFCC Chairman

By Charles Igbo

Former Governor of Abia State and currently, Senate Majority Leader, Orji Uzor Kalu, is not free from the alleged N7.1bn fraud, for which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arrested, prosecuted and jailed him.

The EFCC had, successfully, prosecuted Kalu and sent him to jail, for 12 years in December,  2019. But Kalu was released on May 8, 2020 after serving about five months in jail on what people say was on technical grounds.

Jones Udeogu, a former Director of Finance at the Government House, Umuahia, with whom Kalu was prosecuted and jailed went to Court to challenge the jurisdiction of the Judge, Honourable Justice Liman. When Liman delivered the judgement, he had already been elevated to the Appeal Court.

The Supreme Court said Liman was wrong to have gone back to a lower Court to deliver the judgement, even though he was the trial Judge. The Apex Court, therefore, ordered a retrial of the case at the Federal High Court.

The judgement, even though   it was for Udeogu who initiated it, also affected Kalu since it was the same Judge who delivered the judgement, same day, same case.

But Kalu went to a Federal High Court, after his release,  and got a judgement that the retrial order by the Supreme Court, did not include him as a party, that it was meant for Udeogu.

In excluding him, the Court said Kalu cannot be tried again for a case he had been tried before and convicted.

But speaking on Thursday at the 62nd State House Ministerial briefing which was organized by the Presidential Communications Team, EFCC Executive Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, said the Commission is still after Kalu on the case. It is being pursued.

Bawa: “The prosecution lasted for 12 years or so, and he was convicted by the Court. He went to the Supreme Court, and the Court said yes, because the Judge who convicted him had been elevated to the Court of Appeal, he cannot come back to the lower Court and that he should be retried in Lagos.

“So, we wanted to arraign him, almost, immediately in Lagos for the prosecution to start all over again, and then  he went to Court, challenging that he has been discharged and acquitted, and nobody and nobody discharged and acquitted him, and we are still pursuing the matters here on Abuja. So, the. matter is still on going.”