Chairman of the Presidential Advisory committee
against corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay(SAN) has asked banks to ignore the order
by the House of Representatives panel to unfreeze bank accounts belonging to
former first lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan.
The House of Representatives committee on Public
petitions had on Tuesday issued an order to all six banks to unfreeze
accounts belonging to Mrs. Jonathan. According to the committee, the freezing
was carried out with no specific orders from any competent court of law.
The affected banks were: Union Bank, First Bank,
EcoBank, Diamond Bank, Fidelity Bank and Skye Bank. Sagay, in his reaction,
pointed out that the could not unfreeze an account frozen by EFCC or a court.
He said;
“The House of Representatives is acting
totally outside of its functions and constitutional rights. It is trying to
take over a court. Only a court higher than the High Court which froze the
accounts can say they should be unfrozen.
It
seems the legislature, which has been trying to carry out executive functions,
is now trying to hijack judicial functions. I think the House is trying to
ridicule Nigerian democracy and I thought they were the more thoughtful arm of
the National Assembly.”
The EFCC has the power to temporarily freeze
an account and then obtain a court order. Normally what the EFCC does is to
flag such accounts and then get a court order and I am sure they are in the
process of that.
So, I think we should just ignore the
vituperations of the House of Representatives which seems to have lost sense of
its true functions and is now delving into a judicial work,”.
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