Court orders CBN to unfreeze #EndSARS promoters’ accounts

The judge, then, set aside the November 4, 2020 ruling and ordered that all the accounts of the affected persons “be immediately defreezed.”

Nimi Princewill • February 10, 2021

#EndSARS protest used to illustrate the story

The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court on Wednesday ordered the Nigerian Central Bank (CBN) to unfreeze the bank accounts of 20 #EndSARS protesters.

Court documents first published by Peoples Gazette on November 6, revealed how Governor Godwin Emefiele obtained a one-sided federal court order to freeze accounts linked to the #EndSARS campaigners on November 4, for three months.

An Access Bank letter obtained by the Gazette on November 11, however, revealed that Mr. Emefiele did not follow extant regulatory procedures before ordering indiscriminate freezing of the bank accounts.

The bank accounts blocked had included those run by Gatefield, a public interest think-tank, which confirmed to the Gazette that its account with Access Bank was frozen following a CBN directive on October 26, more than a week before an ex-parte order was granted by Justice Ahmed Mohammed.

Despite the expiration of the three-month order last Tuesday, the bank accounts of the #EndSARS champions had remained frozen until Justice Mohammed gave the order to unfreeze the accounts Wednesday afternoon, the Gazette has learnt.

(NAN)

We have recently deactivated our website's comment provider in favour of other channels of distribution and commentary. We encourage you to join the conversation on our stories via our Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages.