Minister, Stella Oduah, has asked a court to prohibit
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) from investigating them on an alleged loan scam
involving N142 million.
Mrs. Oduah’s company, Sea Petroleum and Gas Company
Limited, and six of its directors, Humphrey Enechukwu, Ifeanyi
Davis Okoh, Magdalene Udumebraye Ideh, Emmanuel Nnamdi
Nwaobu, Theophilus Anaekwenwa Aguguom, and Nwaka
Ogeyingbo, are urging a Federal High Court in Lagos, Nigeria,
to order a stop to the EFCC’s investigation and possible
prosecution.
Apart from the EFCC, Union Homes Saving and Loans Plc. and
a Lagos lawyer, Ken Ahia, are also joined as co-respondents
in the lawsuit. The applicants’ lawsuit was provoked by letters
of invitation the EFCC sent to the former minister and other
directors of her company to respond to a petition by Union
Homes Saving and Loans accusing them diversion of the
bank’s funds.
The financial institution’s petition, dated February 6th, 2015,
accused Mrs. Oduah and her company of owing the bank
N140 million, adding that the debtors had failed to pay back
despite several concessions by the bank. The petition also
asserted that the delinquent company and its directors are
fully capable of repaying the loan.
Signed by the bank’s head of debt recovery, K.M. Theophilus,
and a consultant in charge of special recovery, Inam Ukotak,
the petition by Union Homes Savings and Loans urged the
EFCC to investigate the matter.
To stop the EFCC, the executive director of Sea Petroleum and
Gas Company, Mr. Enechukwu, initiated a lawsuit to enforce
the firm’s “fundamental right.” In the lawsuit, filed by a
Lagos-based lawyer, A.O. Agboola, the debtor firm disclosed
that Sea Petroleum and Gas Company borrowed funds from
Union Bank Plc. and Union Homes Savings and Loans to buy
numerous houses at Millennium Homes, Oniru, a private
estate in Lekki in 2007. The purchased homes were meant to
accommodate the company’s senior staff.
In the lawsuit, the company declared that Nigeria’s economic
downturn between 2008 and 2009 rendered the company
unable to meet its payment obligations to Union Homes
Savings and Loans. The lawsuit also claimed that the two
parties agreed to restructure the loans rather than have the
loans classified as bad debts, which would have resulted in
the applicants’ loss of their residential apartments.
Consequently, Union Homes issued fresh letters of offer dated
December 31st, 2009 to the applicants.
Mr. Enechukwu claimed that the total amount of mortgage
loans to the applicants and Mrs. Oduah was N422.5 million
as May, 2014. According to the lawsuit, the various officials of
Mrs. Oduah’s company had repaid N367.9 million to Union
Homes Savings and Loans.
The lawsuit added that, despite the applicants’ good faith
efforts to repay the loans, they received a letter of invitation of
invitation by the EFCC on March 2nd, 2015, in connection with
the mortgage loan. It accused the bank of using the allegation
of diversion of funds as a ruse to give the contractual issue
between the parties a veneer of criminality in order to justify
using the EFCC as a debt recovery agency.
Consequently, the applicants urged the court to declare that
the threat of their arrest and detention by the EFCC at the
behest of Union Homes Savings and Loans and Mr. Ahia
would be a gross violation of their constitutionally guaranteed
fundamental rights.
They asked the court to restrain the respondents and their
agents from arresting and detaining them in respect of their
contractual obligation to Union Homes Savings and Loans
limited.
In its counter affidavit, signed by its official, Chika Onwubuya,
Union Homes Savings and Loans asserted that one of the
conditions for the loan to Mrs. Oduah’s company was that it
maintain the salary accounts of the applicants with Union
Bank, the parent company of the mortgage lender. He
disclosed that, on receipt of the loans, Mrs. Oduah’s company
fraudulently diverted the applicants’ salary accounts, thereby
deceiving the mortgage bank.
The mortgage company also accuses Mrs. Oduah of using
some of the applicants as fronts to collect loans from Union
Homes Savings and Loan.
Mr. Onwubuya accused the applicants of consistently
frustrating the mortgage lenders’ efforts to have access to the
title documents of the property that is part of the collateral
used to secure the loans. He said the lender approached the
EFCC after discovering that Mrs. Oduah had used some of the
loan recipients as fronts and that her company had
fraudulently failed to meet other loan conditions.
The mortgage lender also told the court that Mrs. Oduah’s
firm had not repaid the outstanding sum of the loan despite
its promises to do so. Their lawyer accused the applicants of
filing a lawsuit in order to stop the EFCC from investigating
their criminal conversion of loans obtained by false pretense.
He urged the court to serve the interest of justice by
dismissing the lawsuit by Mrs. Oduah and her directors,
adding that EFCC agents should be allowed to perform their
statutory duties to recover the proceeds of fraud and return
same to the mortgage lender.
In another counter affidavit, an EFCC operative, Olusegun
Oloruntuyi, stated that the anti-corruption agency was simply
carrying out its statutory duty of investigating allegations of
crime, adding that the applicants had not honored the EFCC’s
invitation.
The lawsuit was adjourned for judgment at a later date.