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Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Friday threatened to quit further adjudication in the N8 billion CBN currency scam due to the further amendment of the charges in the four-year-old case.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the case had since 2015 suffered series of adjournments ranging from the health condition of some of the accused persons to absence of defence counsel and transfer of judges.
Ayo-Emmanuel, who expressed his dissatisfaction with the pace of the case, said that he was too busy in his new jurisdiction in Lagos State to be entertaining unnecessary adjournment of cases.
“If you are not careful, I will leave this matter and nobody can force me to continue.
“I cannot travel all the way from Lagos only to be wasting my time adjourning cases based on further amendments here.
“You are doing further amendment at the time of defence, I had to leave my busy schedule to attend to this matter,” the judge said.
Earlier, Mr Adebisi Adeniyi, the counsel to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had informed the court that there was a new development that warranted further amendment of the charges against the defendants.
Adeniyi expressed his regrets for delaying the matter due to the further amendment.
All the defence counsel had separately objected to the amendment and had prayed the court to dismiss it in the interest of justice.
The judge, however, adjourned the case till May 22 for ruling on whether to allow the amendment or not.
NAN reports that the court had rejected the no case submission separately filed by each of the accused persons in the matter.
Patient Okoro, Johnson Afolabi, Kolawole Babalola, Muniru Olaniran, Fatai Adedokun and others had since 2015 been facing multiple charges bordering on stealing and re-circulation of mutilated currency at the Ibadan branch of CBN.
