UPDATED: Court discharges HEDA chair, Suraju, from charges of cyberstalking Adoke

The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Tuesday, discharged the chairman, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), Olanrewaju Suraju, from cyberstalking crime charges.

Mr Suraju was accused of cyberstalking a former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Adoke.

Mr Adoke had petitioned the police accusing the HEDA chair of peddling falsehood against him in respect of the Malabu Oil scam.

Last February, the federal government arraigned Mr Suraju before Binta Nyako, a judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, on a two-count amended charge.

At Tuesday’s sitting, the judge discharged Mr Suraju following an application by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to withdraw the charge against the HEDA boss.

The prosecuting lawyer, Yewande Cole, told the court that she had been directed by the Attorney-General to withdraw the suit.

“I have the instruction of the Attorney-General to withdraw the amended charge of two counts for further review.

“This means that the court will strike out the case and when we are ready to go on, we will come back and refile it,” Ms Cole said.

She also argued that according to relevant provisions of the law, the defendant could only be discharged and not acquitted at this point.

But Mr Suraju’s lawyer, Muiz Banire, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), asked the court to acquit his client.

He argued that there was no natural cause of action following such a request for withdrawal.

“It is the law as contained in Section 355 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) that where such an application is made, the court will acquit the defendant,” the senior lawyer said.

Mr Banire also asked the court to order the release of the N7 million bond he posted to secure the bail of his client.

The senior lawyer further asked the court to award N1 million cost to him.

Ruling

In a bench ruling, the judge discharged Mr Suraju and also discharged the N7 million bail bond.

In addition, Mrs Nyako, ordered the prosecution to pay N250,000 to the defendant, whenever the case was going to be refiled.

Background

The former AGF, Mr Adoke, had petitioned the Nigerian police over the circulation of the audiotape and email which Mr Adoke said were forged to incriminate him regarding the Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 245 corruption case in Milan, Italy.

The police investigated Mr Adoke’s petition against Mr Suraju and subsequently sent the case file to the Attorney-General of the Federation’s office which filed a cyberstalking case against Mr Suraju.

But, during their series of denials of wrongdoing regarding the matter, HEDA and Mr Suraju had explained that the items he was accused of fabricating were court exhibits which featured in the Malabu Oil scam trials in Milan, Italy.

In their open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, they maintained that the statements allegedly made by Mr Suraju were identical to those that have been made by the Federal Republic of Nigeria in its civil cases against JP Morgan Chase in London and its case against Shell, Eni and other defendants in Milan.

Nigeria has been part of civil and criminal cases in the U.K., Italy, and the U.S. in a bid to bring beneficiaries of the fraudulent transactions to book and to recover proceeds of the controversial deal from them.

The email and audiotape complained of by Mr Adoke had featured in the criminal case in Milan, Italy over the transfer of about $1.1 billion by Shell and ENI through the Nigerian government to accounts controlled by a former Nigerian petroleum minister, Dan Etete.

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The controversies surrounding the OPL 245 started in 1998 when Mr Etete originally awarded the block to his Malabu Oil and Gas Limited while serving as petroleum minister in the late Sani Abacha`s regime.

Nigerian investigators and activists had alleged that Mr Etete bribed some top officials of the Goodluck Jonathan administration after Eni and Shell controversially acquired OPL 245, one of Nigeria’s richest oil blocks.

The Nigerian government did not benefit from the $1.1 billion transferred for the acquisition of the rich oil field while the ownership logjam over the oilfield remained unresolved.

In 2011, the AGF, Mr Adoke, advised the administration of Goodluck Jonathan on the OPL 245 transactions at the time to resolve the ownership logjam that prevented it from being explored over the years.

His name has repeatedly featured in matters connected to the deal. He is being currently prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at the Federal High Court in Abuja over his roles in the alleged scam.

A Milan court would later acquit Eni and Shell regarding the charges filed against them regarding the Malabu scam.

Suraju speaks

Mr Suraju, who addressed journalists after the proceedings, gave an insight into what he believed led the prosecution to withdraw the case against him.

He noted that the case filed against him by the AGF office went contrary to the case the Nigerian government was pursuing against JP Morgan Chase to retrieve part of the proceeds of the alleged fraudulent scheme in the U.K.

He said: “The Nigerian government has sued JP Morgan Chase Bank over the payment of $801million to Malabu from the account that belongs to Nigeria and because of that JP Morgan was actually the one that brought the email upon which Adoke claimed was forged.

“It was brought by JP Morgan Chase to court and the same thing with the tape. The Nigerian government has gone contrary to what they said here, in the UK court, to confirm that email was authentic and legitimate.”

As a result of this, Mr Suraju said evidence the Nigerian government adduced in the UK was challenged due to its contradictory claim in Nigeria that it was forged.

“JP Morgan lawyer in London brought it up and questioned the credibility of Nigeria government and the attorney general for saying those documents are authentic because the same documents are actually used to prosecute myself in Nigeria.

” The UK based Nigerian lawyer said that the charges filed in Nigeria were at the compromise of DPP and Adoke and it was not the Nigeria government.

” He pleaded there on February 28 in London court that the charges will be withdrawn .”