The Federal High Court Abuja has adjourned Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu’s arraignment, charged with alleged N7.1 billion fraud until June 7.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was to arraign Kalu, following a Supreme Court order that he and his co-defendants in the fraud charge should be retried, having quashed the 12-year jail sentence handed to them by a Federal High Court in Lagos.

When the matter was called counsel to the EFCC, Chile Okoronma told the court that a preliminary matter needed to be resolved before the former Abia governor could be arraigned.

According to Mr. Okoronma, the prosecution wrote a letter to the court’s chief judge seeking a transfer of the matter to the Lagos division.

“Looking at the charge sheet, no element of any of the offences took place in Abuja. We will be asking that the matter be adjourned sine die (indefinitely) while we await the response from the chief judge,” Mr. Okoronma submitted.

He held that proceeding with the matter in the court’s Abuja division would be an exercise in futility.

However, the trial judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo, refused to adjourn the matter indefinitely and insisted that counsel should take a specific date to return to court.

He subsequently adjourned the matter until June 7 for a report on whether it should be transferred to Lagos or not.

“Having rejected an application for an adjournment sine die, I, hereby, make an order adjourning this matter until June 7,” the judge ruled.

Mr. Kalu was convicted by the Lagos division of the court on December 5, 2019, and sentenced to 12 years in prison for N7. 65 billion fraud.

He was convicted of defrauding Abia where he was a governor for eight years using his company, Slok Nigeria Limited.

However, in its judgment on May 8, 2020, the Supreme Court quashed the conviction and ordered that the EFCC retry the defendants.

In a unanimous decision by a seven-man panel of justices, the Supreme Court nullified the entire proceedings that led to Kalu’s conviction.

The apex court held that the trial judge, Justice Mohammed Idris, was already elevated to the Court of Appeal, as of the time he sat and delivered a judgment against Kalu and his co-defendants.

It noted that Mr. Idris was no longer a judge of the Federal High Court as of December 5, 2019, when the former governor and the other defendants were found guilty of charges against them.

(NAN)