By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
Senior Correspondent
Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) counsel representing four companies which pleaded guilty to laundering $15.5million allegedly belonging to former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, on Wednesday May 2 urged Justice Babs Kuewumi of a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos to reverse their guilty plea. Ozekhome submitted that the reversal of the guilty plea is imperative because the companies were not given fair trial before they were convicted.
He added that the companies had no legal representative of their choice which left them helpless, thus occassioned their guilty plea.
“Throughout the trial, they did not have any counsel or counsel of their choice,” Ozekhome submitted, positing that had it been that the judge’s attention was drawn to it, he would have ordered the prosecution to provide a counsel for the defendants.
He told the court that he was briefed to represent the companies after their directors pleaded guilty, having not been authorised by the board to do so.
Moving his motion seeking to set aside the companies conviction, Ozekhome contended that they were convicted “in gross violation” of the 1999 Constitution, which he said occasioned a miscarriage of justice.
He prayed that the trial be start de novo (afresh) and that the previous proceedings be declared null, void and unsustainable in law.
According to him, the application was moved on the ground that the court failed to pass a sentence on the convicted companies, as the judge reserved sentence till end of the trial of the other defendants.
“The lapse in time between the conviction and expected sentence amounts not only to torture but breach of right to be tried within a reasonable time. Because there was no sentence, they cannot exercise their right of appeal,” he said.
Besides, Ozekhome added that the directors who pleaded guilty were not authorised by the board to defend the companies, which he said were denied the right to cross-examine the purported directors in a proper trial.
“They are just busybodies and interlopers who were pressured to come and plead guilty. They had no mandate to do so,” he stressed.
The defence counsel argued that the conviction was “grossly unfair” and amounted to “justice crushed” due to non-compliance with Section 36 of the 1999 constitution which requires that an accused be given adequate facilities to defend himself.
“We urge my lord to set aside this manifest, manifold travesty of justice. We need a trial de novo. We are crying on bended knees. The companies want to be tried, but they want to be defended in this trial, not ‘nicodemusly’, but in the public,” he said.
While responding, prosecuting counsel Rotimi Oyedepo urged the court to refuse the application for being an abuse of court process.
According to him, it amounted to asking the judge to revisit his ruling and to assume the position of an appellate court.
“Your Lordship is functus officio,” he averred, adding that the companies have a right to appeal their conviction.
“Re-inviting my lord to set the conviction aside is like asking him to return to Egypt when he has crossed the red sea. This application is asking my lord to constitute himself into an appellate court. This application is a violent abuse of process of this court and should be frowned at,” Oyedepo said.
He denied that the directors who pleaded guilty were not authorised to do so, saying there was evidence that they were indeed the companies directors from the Corporate Affairs Commission and from the companies bank accounts.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had arraigned the companies alongside with a former special adviser on domestic affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Waripamo Dudafa, a lawyer/the Companies’ secretary Amajuoyi Briggs and a banker Adedamola Bolodeoku.
Whereas the companies pleaded guilty, Dudafa, Briggs and Bolodeoku pleaded not guilty in 17-count charge brought against them by the EFCC.
After listening to the arguments of parties, Justice Kuewumi adjourned until July 3 for ruling and hearing of another pending application by the second defendant.
