The arraignment of the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele and two others before the FCT High Court failed to hold on Wednesday.

Though the court sat to hear other cases, no reason was given for the failure of the arraignment of the embattled CBN governor and his co-defendants.

Mr Emeifele is charged by the federal government alongside Sa’adatu Yaro and a company, April 1616 Investment Ltd, on a 20-count charge bordering on procurement fraud, conferment of advantage and conspiracy, among others.

The arraignment was initially scheduled for August 17 but was stalled due to the absence of the second defendant, Ms Yaro.

When the matter was called before Justice Hamza Muazu, a vacation judge, the prosecuting counsel, Mohammed Abubakar, who is the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in the Federal Ministry of Justice, told the court that Ms Yaro took ill and could not make it to court for the arraignment.

Due to the development, Mr Abubakar sought a new date for the arraignment. The application was, however, not objected to by counsel to Mr Emefiele, Akinlolu Kehinde SAN and counsel for Ms Yaro, Lawal Lebi.

Following the application with no objection from the defence team, Justice Muazu adjourned the case to August 23 for the arraignment of the defendants.

However, the matter was not listed on the court’s cause list, while neither the prosecution nor defence teams were in court.

When contacted via telephone, Mr Emefiele’s counsel said the FCT chief judge, Hussein Baba-Yusuf, might likely give a new date for the arraignment.

In another development, another vacation judge, Justice Edwin Okpe, struck out two separate cases filed by two siblings of Mr Emefiele, George and Okanta, seeking an order against being arrested by the SSS.

The Emefiele brothers had separately approached the court, seeking, among other reliefs, its order of perpetual injunction restraining the secret police from inviting, intimidating, harassing, and arresting or detaining them in relation “to matters or body of matters which relates to the ongoing investigation of Mr Godwin Emefiele and/or matters outside the constitutional and statutory mandate of the 1st respondent (DSS)”.

The judge had on August 4 restrained the SSS from arresting the siblings while ruling in the two ex-parte motions brought before the court by the Emefiele siblings.

At the resumed hearing of the separate cases today, counsel for the applicants, Grace Ehusani, informed the court that the applicants separately filed a notice of discountenance of the cases, though she did not give any reasons for the application.

While not opposing the application, counsel for the SSS, I Awo, told the court that since the respondents had joined issues with the applicants, the court should dismiss the cases instead of striking them out as requested by Ms Ehusani.

He then asked for a substantial cost to be determined by the court against the applicants in favour of the respondents.

Counsel for the AGF, Maimuma Lami-Sheru, aligned herself with the submission of the SSS counsel, submitting that in line with Order 24 Rule 1 (1) of the FCT High Court Rules, the applicants should pay cost and therefore asked for a cost of N2 million against the applicants.

In his bench ruling, Justice Okpe struck out the cases and ordered that the applicants should pay no cost since the respondents are government agencies.

(NAN)