The Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit filed by Lagos State’s Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to prohibit the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, from arresting him after his tenure of office.
Sanwo-Olu has been Governor since 2019 and won a second term in 2023.
Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja struck out the matter after counsel who appeared for Sanwo-Olu, Gbenga Femi Akande, moved the motion for the discontinuance of the case.
Justice Abdulmalik on October 29 had fixed November 26 for further mention of the suit.
The adjournment followed the submission of the EFCC’s lawyer, Hadiza Afegbua, that she was yet to see the fresh originating summons served on them by Darlington Ozurumba, who filed the suit on the Governor’s behalf.
Although, the matter was fixed for today, it was, however, not listed on cause list and no Governor’s lawyer was in court.
Sanwo-Olu, through his counsel, Ozurumba, had sued the anti-graft agency as sole defendant over alleged threat to arrest, detain and prosecute him after his tenure as Governor.
In the originating summons, filed on June 6, the Governor raised seven questions and sought 11 reliefs. He, therefore, sought an order restraining the EFCC from harassing, intimidating, arresting, detaining, interrogating or prosecuting him in connection with his tenure as the Governor of Lagos State, among others.
But the EFCC, in its counter-affidavit, urged the court not to grant the reliefs sought by Gov. Sanwo-Olu, describing it as speculative.
The anti-corruption agency, in the application dated October. 30 but filed October 31 by its lawyer, Afegbua, said contrary to the Governor’s claims, the EFCC neither threatened, invited or took any step at all to encroach on his right to freedom of movement nor violated his right to private and family life and personal liberty.
