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• Fred Ajudua
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• Revoke
• Supreme Court

SUPREME COURT REVOKES FRED AJUDUA’S BAIL, ORDERS REMAND IN PRISON

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  CapitalTimesNews / 1 week
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• 2 min read

The Supreme Court has directed that Lagos socialite Fred Ajudua be taken back to prison custody preparatory to the resumption of his trial in relation to a $1,043,000 fraud case brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). In a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court revoked the bail granted to Ajudua by the Court of Appeal in Lagos in a judgment delivered on December 10, 2018. Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme, in the lead judgment, held that the Court of Appeal had no jurisdiction to grant the bail it granted Ajudua in the December 10, 2018 judgment, having found incompetent the brief of argument filed in Ajudua’s appeal against a July 5, 2018 ruling by Justice Mojisola Dada of the High Court of Lagos State, Ikeja, rejecting his request for pre-trial bail. “It is crystal clear that the lower court was on all fours with the law when it declared the appellant’s brief of argument incompetent and struck it out. At that point, the appellant’s (Ajudua’s) appeal was extinguished. There was, therefore, nothing more to consider in that appeal. The lower court, at that point, had no jurisdiction to proceed further. It had become functus officio,” Justice Nwosu-Iheme said. The Supreme Court held that the action of the lower court in proceeding to consider the arguments canvassed in the brief of argument it earlier found to be incompetent was an exercise in futility and a complete nullity. “This appeal succeeds and it is hereby allowed. The decision of the trial court dated the 5th day of July 2018 refusing bail to the respondent (Ajudua) is hereby restored. The respondent is to be remanded in prison custody. Accordingly, this case is remitted back to the Chief Judge of Lagos State to be assigned to the same trial judge, M. A. Dada J for the continuation of speedy trial and determination within the shortest possible time,” Justice Nwosu-Iheme said. Ajudua is facing trial over allegations of obtaining $1,043,000 by false pretenses from a Palestinian, Ziad Abu Zalaf, who was then based in Germany. The EFCC alleged that Ajudua conspired with one Joseph Ochunor, who is still at large, to obtain money by false pretenses from Zalaf of Technical International Ltd., a division of Mystic Company Ltd., a German-based company.