No plea bargain deal with Emefiele – AGF
The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi, has denied signing any plea bargain agreement with the immediate-past former central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Emefiele has been in the custody of the Departmeng of Security Service (DSS) since his suspension in June.
He is being investigated for his activities during his nine-year reign at the CBN.
The Federal Government has charged him over alleged N6.9 billion corruption at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja.
On two occasions in August, the court postponed the arraignment of Emefiele and his co-defendant, Sa’adatu Ramalan-Yaro.
The botched arraignment fuelled speculations that Emefiele might have secured a soft landing from the government concerning the charges.
The Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Mohammed Abubakar, had in an interview dispelled the speculation that Emefiele had struck a plea deal with the government.
A plea bargain is a legal process that allows a defendant charged with an offence in court, usually before a trial begins or gets to an advanced stage, to plead guilty to a lesser crime in order to get softer punishment.
In his Saturday statement, Mr Fagbemi described the plea deal report as “false.”
“The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice hereby states clearly that these reports are completely false,” the official said.
The minister, however, acknowledged Emefiele’s intention for a plea deal through his lawyer, Akinlolu Kehinde.
“It would be noted that the legal team representing Mr Godwin Emefiele had expressed their intention in court at the last hearing to initiate a plea bargain arrangement.
“However, no such arrangement has been reached with Mr Godwin Emefiele or his representatives,” Mr Fagbemi explained.
Mr Emefiele who was suspended from office by Mr Tinubu on June 9, has since been in the custody of the DSS after he was picked in Lagos and flown to Abuja, where he was interrogated.
After holding Emefiele in custody for several weeks, the government initially arraigned him before the Federal High Court in Lagos over illegal possession of firearms.
However, the two-count charge was later struck out after it was withdrawn by the DPP.
On August 14, the government filed a 20-count charge bordering on procurement fraud against Emefiele and Ms Ramalan-Yaro.
The charges alleged that Emefiele conferred corrupt advantages on Ms Ramalan-Yaro using her firm, April 1616 Investment Limited, to execute series of procurement contracts spanning years.
The government alleged that the defendants committed the offences through the award of contracts to Mrs Ramalan-Yaro’s company for the supply of posh cars.
The defendants, allegedly through the corrupt transactions, purchased a fleet of about 100 luxurious vehicles and armoured buses worth about N6.9 billion.
The alleged corrupt transactions took place between 2018 and 2020, according to the charges.
Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000, under which he was charged, provides a five-year jail sentence upon conviction.
“Any public officer who uses his office or position to gratify or confer any corrupt or unfair advantage upon himself or any relation or associate of the public officer or any other public officer shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for five years without an option of fine,” the law stipulates.
Emefiele has since remained in DSS custody. Mrs Ramalan-Yaro, who was arrested alongside her husband, Aminu Yaro, on July 12, is also in DSS.
An FCT High Court had ordered the release of the couple on July 25, but the order was not complied with.
Also, it took an order of the FCT High Court on July 13, more than a month after Emefiele’s arrest, for the DSS to file the firearms charges against him.
Subsequently, on July 25, the DSS arraigned him before the Federal High Court in Lagos on two charges of “illegal possession” of firearms and live ammunition.
The government later applied to the court to have the firearms possession charges against Emefiele dropped.
Emefiele’s co-defendant in the fresh charges also has a pending money laundering case involving about N140 billion.