Court remands Emefiele in Kuje prison till Wednesday

A Federal Capital Territory High Court has remanded the former Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele, in Kuje prison.

Emefiele is standing trial on an alleged procurement fraud. The trial which had been stalled on three occasions finally held on Friday.

The Federal Government had initially preferred 20 charges on procurement fraud to the tune of N6.5bn against the former CBN governor.

But the FG reduced the charges to six to the tune of over N1bn before he was arraigned.

At Friday proceedings, Emefiele’s counsel, Mathew Burkaa, SAN, moved the application for bail but the counsel for the Federal Government, Rotimi Oyedepo, opposed granting bail to the former CBN governor.

The presiding judge, Justice Hamza Muazu, said a bench ruling could not be delivered in view of the plethora of authorities cited by the two parties.

The Judge said he needed a little time to study the authorities and peruse through the exhibits supplied by Emefiele to support his request for bail.

He, however, ordered that Emefiele be remanded at the Kuje prison pending the determination of his bail application.

Muazu then adjourned the case till November 22 for ruling on the bail application and November 28 for the commencement of trial.

His remand order came after Justice Olukayode Adeniyi directed that the former CBN governor should be released to his lawyers on November 8 after spending 151 days in detention.