By Baron Ike
Detained former Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), cc, has gone to court to challenge the seizure of millions of dollars and other foreign currency from him by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), claiming N1 billion as damages and compensation for violation of his right.
The EFCC had recently busted a place where Yakubu reportedly stashed away $9.7million and more than 74,000 Pound Sterling in a house in Kaduna believed to be a family house.
Yakubu has been in the EFCC custody for 26 days.
The EFCC had gone ahead to get a court order confiscating the said money on behalf of the federal government shortly after the discovery. Yakubu had also owned up to the ownership of the money, saying it was gift from friends.
But on Tuesday, March 7, his Counsel Adeola Adedipe headed for the courts where he told an Abuja court that the matter was brought pursuant to Order 8 Rule 4 of the Fundamental Rights Enforcement Procedure Rules.
Yakubu is asking the court to declare that his continued detention was also an infringement on his rights to dignity of human person. He is also praying the court for an order enforcing his rights to personal liberty, dignity of human person, freedom of movement, private and family life.
Be that as it may, he was asking the court to direct for his immediate release from the EFCC custody or admitting him to bail on liberal terms and allowing him to complete his medical treatment in the United Kingdom.
He also prayed for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the EFCC from further detaining him unlawfully, and urged the court to compel the respondents to tender a public apology to him in two widely published national daily newspapers for the violation of his rights.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the application.