A former spokesperson for the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, has
disengaged two Senior Advocates of Nigeria leading his defence in his
N400m money laundering case before the Federal High Court in Abuja.
He
immediately replaced the two senior lawyers with another lawyer, Mr.
Abel Ozioko, who appeared in the case for the first time on Wednesday.
Metuh’s
decision to disengage the two SANs – Dr. Onyechi Ikpezu and Mr. Emeka
Etiaba (SAN) – came barely 24 hours after the senior lawyers filed an
application for withdrawal as the defendant’s counsel.
Justice Okon Abang had on March 5, 2019, fixed Wednesday for the hearing of the SANs’ application.
But before the scheduled hearing, Metuh had written to the SANs disengaging them as his lawyers.
The
two SANs had been leading his defence since January 2016 when the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission preferred the charges against
him.
Metuh and his firm, Destra Investment Limited, are being
prosecuted by the EFCC on money laundering charges, involving
allegations that they both fraudulently took the sum N400m from the
Office of the National Security Adviser “when they reasonably ought to
know” that the money was part of the proceeds of alleged criminal act of
then NSA, Sambo Dasuki.
The ex-PDP’s spokesperson was also
accused of transacting with cash of $2m without going through a
financial institution in violation of a provision of the Money
Laundering (Prohibition) Act.
At the Wednesday’s proceedings,
Ikpeazu, informed the judge that his application seeking an order
permitting him and his law firm to withdraw from the case had been
overtaken by event following the Metuh’s letter of disengagement of his
law firm.