A scene unfolded at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday, as Justice James Omotosho delivered a police attorney, Ibrahim Mohammed, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for submitting a criminal accusation against Senator Stella Adaeze Oduah.
The police attorney will undergo investigation for submitting the 8-count criminal charges against the former Minister of Aviation in the name of EFCC without the authorization of the anti-corruption agency.
Although the conflicted attorney, who left the EFCC last year in November, acknowledged his mistake in filing the controversial charges under the name of the anti-graft agency, the Judge still mandated that the authenticity of his errors be established through an investigation.
Justice Omotosho interrogated the police attorney as to whether the anti-corruption agency was aware of the charges since it was being prosecuted by the Police.
Senator Oduah was supposed to appear before the court on eight counts of alleged involvement in falsifying her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate and fraudulently receiving funds from the federal government.
However, when the case was called, Stella Oduah was absent from the court, and the Judge sought an explanation for her absence.
In response, Mohammed, a lawyer from the Police Legal Department at Force Headquarters in Abuja, informed the court that the defendant was not present because she had not been served with the charge.
According to him, Senator Oduah had informed them that she was unwell when invited to court for the charge.
Reacting to this, the court questioned why the charge was filed under the name of EFCC when the prosecutor was from the Police.
The police lawyer, who suddenly became unstable in his answers to the Judge, admitted that he left the EFCC in November 2022 and was redeployed from the Benin City office to the Force Headquarters for the Police.
He also acknowledged that he filed the charges on June 22 of this year in the name of EFCC, seven months later, but it was done mistakenly.
Justice Omotoso, displeased with the claim of error, instructed his Registrar to bring the head of the Police Unit at the Federal High Court into the courtroom.
The Judge then instructed the police personnel to accompany the police lawyer to the EFCC headquarters and hand him over to EFCC operatives for an investigation into the validity of the criminal charges.
Meanwhile, the next hearing in the case has been rescheduled for July 18, by which time the anti-graft agency must have concluded its investigation and reported back to the court.