N7.65bn fraud: Orji Uzor Kalu not discharged yet, EFCC Chair Bawa

The Chairman Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, said in Abuja that the Senate Chief Whip, Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu, is not out of the claws of EFCC yet.

Contrary to speculations, Kalu has not been discharged or acquitted as the matter is still in court, Bawa said.

He spoke at the 62nd ministerial briefing, the last for the year, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Bawa promised that the anti-graft agency “will see to the end of Kalu’s case”.

Persecondnews recalls that Kalu, formerly of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had defected to ruling APC on the eve of 2019 elections and was elected the Senate Chief Whip, representing Abia North.

The anti-graft agency boss said:” The prosecution lasted for over 12 years or so, and he was convicted by the court. We went to the Supreme Court, but the judge was elevated to the court of appeal, and he couldn’t come back to the lower court and he should be re-tried in Lagos.

“We wanted to arraign him almost immediately in Lagos for the prosecution to start all over again, and he went to court challenging that he has been discharged and acquitted.

“Nobody discharged him, we are still pursuing the matter in court here in Abuja, and the matter is still ongoing.”

Persecondnews also recalls that the former Abia governor was arraigned on July 27, 2007, at the Federal High Court, Abuja, on a 107- count charge bordering on money laundering, official corruption and criminal diversion of public funds of over N7 billion.

The Federal High Court in Lagos on December 2019 sentenced Kalu to 12 years imprisonment after he was found guilty on all 39 count charges levelled against him.

He was convicted of N7.65 billion fraud perpetrated between 1999 and 2007, while he was governor.

However, the Supreme Court on May 2020 quashed the verdict convicting and sentencing the former governor to 12 years imprisonment.

A unanimous decision by a seven-man panel of justices led by Justice Amina Augie, faulted the judgment of the Federal High Court on the basis that Justice Liman was no longer a judge of the Federal High Court as at the time he sat and delivered the judgment, stating that he been elevated to the Court of Appeal.