Date: 2019-11-28

A former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Wednesday, raised the alarm that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had filed a fresh process in the Federal High Court, Lagos, seeking an interim order for the forfeiture of his home in Ilorin, Kwara State.

Saraki said this in a statement by his media aide, Yusuph Olaniyonu.

He said, "Just like the previous one, which the anti-graft agency made by filing a similar order in the same court on Saraki's Ikoyi House, it is a clear abuse of the court process."

He maintained that the action of the EFCC was contrary to the statement of the nation's highest ranking judicial officer, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed.

"All binding court orders must be obeyed. Nobody, irrespective of his or her position, will be allowed to toy with court judgments."

Saraki said he was surprised that the EFCC, "which prides itself as an institution that is built on the rule of law, has decided to ignore the existing order of the Federal High Court, Abuja"

The court, according to him, had "restrained the respondents (EFCC) by itself, subordinates, agents, servants, or privies howsoever, from seizing, impounding, taking over, confiscating or otherwise forfeiting the applicant’s (Saraki) right to and peacefully enjoy any of his assets and properties."

The statement read further, "Again, instead of the EFCC consolidating its cases by joining the new application with the old one it earlier filed through which the commission got an interim order of forfeiture, which is already being challenged by Dr Saraki at the Federal High Court, Lagos, it decided to proliferate litigation by filing a fresh matter, all in an attempt to embarrass the former Senate President and ignore an existing order.

"The commission was engaging in this rigmarole in order to ensure it has different cases before different judges against the same person.