In accordance with Sections 6(6)(a) and 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and Section 91 of the Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, Cap. S6 Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004, Bawa submitted the application on November 11.
The court stated in its decision that it was satisfied that the EFCC Chairman had not disobeyed its directives as had been claimed.
It decided that the affidavit evidence on hand demonstrated that the EFCC Chairman had followed its order to return a Range Rover Sport (Super Charge) car worth N40 million that the anti-graft agency had seized from Rufus Adeniyi Ojuawo, a former Director of Operations at the Nigerian Air Force, NAF.
According to Justice Orji, the Applicant (Bawa) also started the Commission’s internal system to secure the payment of the N40,000,000.00 that was also confiscated from Ojuawo in various internal memos that were made accessible to the court.
The contempt action against the head of the EFCC was therefore dismissed.
It will be recalled that Justice Orji ordered the Commission to give the exotic car back to AVM Ojuawo, who was in court, in a ruling she issued on November 21, 2018.
In 2016, Justice Muawiyah Baba Idris of the High Court of the FCT in Nyanya docked the former NAF Director of Operations for a trial in connection with allegations that he received N40 million and a Range Rover Sport from one Hima Aboubakar of Societe D’Equipment Internationales Nigeria Limited.
He was charged criminally with two counts.
The high court determined in 2018 that the defendant should receive the seized vehicle back after he brought a second lawsuit against the Commission.
However, Mr. R.N. Ojabo, the defendant’s attorney, brought the court’s attention to the fact that the EFCC had not complied with the order four years after it was issued.
Concerned by the situation, Justice Orji issued a warrant for the EFCC Chairman’s arrest and detention for willful violation of a court order.
“The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman is in contempt of the orders of this honorable court passed on November 21, 2018, directing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abuja to restore to the applicant his Range Rover (Supercharge) and the sum of N40,000,000.00” (Forty Million Naira).
According to Justice Orji, who yesterday overturned her previous decision, “having continued wilfully in disobedience to the order of this court, he should be committed to prison at Kuje Correctional Centre for his disobedience, and continued disobedience of the said order of court made on November 21st, 2018, until he purges himself of the contempt.”
