A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, sitting in Abuja on October 10, 2011, dismissed an application for a stay of proceeding filed by a former House Committee Chairman on Power, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu and his counterpart in the Senate, Senator Nicholas Ugbane, who are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over alleged N5.2 billion fraud in the Rural Electrification Agency (REA).
Elumelu alongside Ugbane and Hon Jibo Mohammed had filed the application claiming that the Federal government had accepted and paid for the contract for which they are being prosecuted and therefore should be discharged and acquitted from the trial. They had filed supportive affidavit evidencing letters from the Ministry of power accepting the contract.
But the EFCC, through its counsel, Kemi Phinero, SAN, challenged the application saying that the prosecution of the accused persons should go its full course and judgment delivered on their impropriety.
At the resumed hearing of the case on October 10, 2011, presiding judge, Justice Adebunkola Banjoko ruled that such an application by the accused person was strange as it was brought under the inherent jurisdiction of the court. She specifically said that there was no law to support the application. “what you are doing is heralding jurisdiction without substance or merit’, the judge ruled.
While adjourning to November 30, 2011, for definite hearing, the judge said that the accused persons should not confuse being charged under a written law, with proof of commission of the offence; adding that the crime in which they were charged amounted to abetting a criminal breach of trust and that they should be prepared to face trial.

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