The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC has intensified its probe against Peter Odili, a former governor of Rivers State, for suspected N100 billion fraud, even as the Nigeria Immigration Service NIS, is expected to hold on to the former governor’s passport on the EFCC’s orders.
Odili, who is married to Justice Mary Odili, the second most senior Supreme Court justice, secured a permanent injunction banning the Federal Government and its agencies from investigating, detaining, or prosecuting him at the end of his administration in 2007.
In 2020, he approached a Federal High Court again to get another injunction to stop an impending probe. In September, the former governor sued NIS for seizing his passport at the airport.
In its response, however, the NIS said it was the EFCC that asked it to seize the passport as part of a probe.
But Justice Inyang Ekwo ordered the service to release the passport to Odili immediately, stating that until the perpetual injunction had been vacated, withholding Odili’s passport would amount to a breach of his fundamental human rights.
The NIS, on the other hand, notified the court last week that it would be appealing the verdict and hence could not restore Odili’s passport at this time.
The service requested an injunction delaying the execution of the court’s verdict until the hearing and determination of its appeal in a move on notice filed under Order 32 Rule 1 of the Federal High Court’s Civil Procedure.
The NIS made their appeal for three reasons, one of which was that returning Odili’s passport would jeopardize the appeal.
“The execution of the judgment would foist upon the Court of Appeal a fait accompli and render the appeal nugatory if the appeal succeeds,” it argued.
Justice Ekwo subsequently directed that Odilli’s passport be handed over to the court and adjourned the matter till December 13, 2021.
Despite the fact that the NIS claims to be holding Odili’s passport in response to an EFCC request, the anti-graft agency has been silent on the subject.
The EFCC launched an investigation into how Odili allegedly siphoned N100 billion between 1999 and 2007 while he was governor.
Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, a spokesman for the EFCC, refused to comment on the topic when approached since the case is still pending in court.
Ada Peter
