Abuja high court clears former Bayelsa governor Timipre Sylva of 50 corruption charges

altFORMER Bayelsa State governor Chief Timipre Sylva has been cleared of 50 counts of corruption and abuse of office by a Federal High Court in Abuja clearing the way for him to stand in the December 5 gubernatorial elections.

 

Next month, Bayelsans go to the polls to elect a governor in what is a two-horse race between Chief Sylva of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and incumbent governor Seriake Dickson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Chief Sylva had been facing corruption charges relating to his tenure in office between 2007 and 2011 and had he been found guilty and hailed, would not have been able to stand.

 

However, yesterday, the court dismissed all the charges against Chief Sylva and six others, with Justice Adeniyi Ademola ruling that the charges were frivolous and lacking in merit. He added the charges as filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) constituted an abuse of the legal process and the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.

 

Specifically, Justice Ademola held that the same charges had been determined by two other justices of the federal high court, Justices Evoh Chukwu and Ahmed Mohammed. He said Justices Chukwu and Mohammed had struck out the charges on June 1 and June 10 respectively.

 

Justice Ademola ruled: “It is the view of the court that the case constitutes an abuse of court process. The charges and witnesses in this case are all the same with the cases earlier struck out by the two courts."

 

He added that rather than forum shopping and jumping from one court to the other, the only option left for the prosecution was to file an appeal. In June, the EFCC had filed the 50-count charge against Chief Sylva alongside Francis Okokuro, Gbenga Balogun and Samuel Ogbuku.

 

They were alleged to have used three companies and co-defendants, Marlin Maritime, Eat Catering Services and Haloween-Blue Construction to defraud Bayelsa of N19.2bn. According to the EFCC, the defendants were alleged to have withdrawn funds under the false pretence of using it to augment salaries of the state government workers.

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