Court Orders EFCC, Bank To Apologise To Customer In Tribune Newspaper

A three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, Ibadan Judicial division, has ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Al Hayat Microfinance Bank Limited to publicly apologise to a bank customer, Ayodele Adesanya, in the Tribune Newspaper.

The appellate court gave the order in its judgment made after establishing a case of breach of fundamental rights by unlawfully arresting and detaining Adesanya over what the court determined and held was a purely civil transaction.

The appellate court had held that Adesanya is entitled to compensation in the form of damages and public apology.

Delivering the majority judgment, Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam in a suit delineated CA/IB/466/2020, in addition to the public apology, had awarded general damages in the sum of N2m against the Al Hayat Microfinance Bank Limited and N500, 000 against the EFCC.

The court held that the N200,000 damages awarded by Justice R. B. Akintola of the lower court in spuit M/372/2018 against EFCC and Al Hayat Microfinance Bank Limited in favour of Adesanya is extremely low.

In 2018, while the case was at the lower court, counsel to the Appellant, Olamiji Martins and Adedayo Aborisade  had asked the court to award heavy damages against the EFCC and Al Hayat Microfinance Bank Limited, asking the court to order them to publicly apologise to the appellant in Tribune newspaper.

The lower court delivered its judgment on July 23, 2020 awarding the sum of N200,000 each against the respondents and failed to rule on the public apology sought by the applicant counsel.

Dissatisfied with the lower court’s judgment, the appellant’s legal representatives had filed a Notice of Appeal before the Court of Appeal, Ibadan Division in 2020 and after four years, judgment was delivered in favour of the appellant.

In his arguments, he had alleged that Al Hayat Microfinance Bank breached an abridged agreement it had with Ayodele Adesanya concerning the repayment of a loan but rather presented a post dated cheque to him in the tune of N6 million to the appellant’s bank and same was returned unpaid after which Al Hayat Microfinance Bank petitioned the EFCC and alleged that it had been defrauded by the appellant.

Justice Onyemenam, relying on Section 35(6) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, held that by so doing, Al Hayat Microfinance Bank acted mala fide by jettisoning its agreement with the sppellant whilst also holding that the EFCC acted beyond its powers by arresting and detaining Ayodele Adesanya as the commission is not given a “carte blanche to exercise its powers willy-nilly”.

The two other judges on the panel; Justice Muslim Sule Hassan and Justice Okon Efreti Abang were in total agreement with the majority judgment.

They condemned the arbitrary abuse of power by the EFCC and its co-sponsor, Al Hayat Microfinance Bank.

Reacting to the said judgment, Olamiji Martins  praised the judicial activism and legal sagacity expended by the Court of Appeal in condemning the outrageous and arbitrary abuse of power by the EFCC.

Martins noted that the judgment being a policy judgment “will aid in curbing the excesses of the EFCC, their civilian collaborators and supporters who are hell bent on feeding the EFCC with falsehood.”

He added that as a top investigation agency, EFCC ought to be able to “sever wheat from shaft” and distance itself from interfering in any civil matter that has to do with debt recovery, emphasising that the commission is notorious for disregarding orders of superior courts of record and thereby making mockery of the judicial system