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A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja Thursday discharged and acquitted an Abuja-based businessman Aliyu Abubakar and seven others of charges bordering on money laundering, criminal misappropriation, forgery, and others related to the management of Malabu Oil and Gas Limited’s funds.
In two separate judgments, the presiding judge Justice Inyang Ekwo held that the prosecuting agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), failed to prove the offences alleged in the two charges, which together contained 53 counts.
The first judgment was in a 43-count case, marked FHC/ABJ/CR/268/2016, where Abubakar was tried alongside Malabu Oil and six other companies.
Justice Ekwo held that the EFCC erred in proceeding to prosecute the defendants on the charge after the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) issued a 2018 letter directing that the defendants should not be prosecuted because there was no sufficient evidence to warrant it.
The second judgment was on the 10-count charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/31/2017, in which Abubakar remained the sole defendant after a former AGF, Mohammed Adoke, who was earlier listed as the first defendant, was freed by the court when his no-case submission was upheld in a ruling delivered on April 19, 2024.
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