Court freezes 32 bank accounts linked to #EndBadGovernance protest

No fewer than 32 Bank Accounts of individuals and companies’ linked to the 10-day #EndBadGovernance Protest organised across the country have been frozen by a Federal High Court in Abuja pending investigation and prosecution of the case.

In a ruling on the ex-parte motion moved by counsel for the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Mohammed, Justice Emeka Nwite, also ordered the banks to apprehend the account holders or any person transacting business on the said accounts.

,,,,,,,,,Mr Nwite, who granted the motion dated and filed on August 20, directed the banks to contact the Nigeria Police Force through the telephone numbers: 08035179870 and 07032449912 as soon as arrest is made.

,,,,,,,,,“That the banks are hereby directed by this honourable court to issue details of the account package(s) and to place a Post-No-Debit (PND) on the accounts, disable the ATM while allowing inflow into the said accounts……as from the date of this court order,” the judge declared.

Reports further revealed that though the ruling was made on Thursday, the certified true copy of the order was sighted on Sunday in Abuja.

____The account numbers affected include 4010073491 (Fidelity Bank), 1255130019 (Access Bank), 0006084167 (Abbey Mortgage Multipurpose Bank Plc), 0821931299 (FCMB), 1012007655 (FCMB), 0000575573 (A AG Mortgage Bank Plc), 1007871587 (UBA), 2037117333 (UBA), 5421031104 (ECOBANK ) and 0024541201 (Union Bank).

_____Others are 1022899050 (UBA), 8755008491 (Branch International Services Ltd), 5630208636 (Fidelity), 4936992542 (Fairmoney Microfinance Bank).

____Others are 8755008499 (Branch International Financial Services Ltd), 2088228208 (UBA), 2115678044 (Zenith Bank), 3041823452 (First Bank), 1011828445 (New Edge Finance), 3024402748 (First Bank), 0161502459 (GTBank) and 0040580047 (Access Bank), 0250291788 (Wema Bank), 6112464260 (Branch International Financial Services Ltd), 1000774097 (Sparkle Microfinance Bank Ltd), 3434649965 (Fairmoney Microfinance Bank), 2013556714 (KUDA Microfinance Bank), 3104962864 (Polaris Bank), 6112464267 (Branch International Finance Services Lit), 8137051249 (OPAY) and 8137051249 (PALMPAY).

______The Police boss, in the application marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1219/2024, had listed PA.LIN.HO Global Service Ltd, Innocent Angel Lovet Chinyere Nkiru, Obidient Movement Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Innocent Angel Lovet, Great Communicators Champion Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd as 1st to 5th respondents respectively

,,,,,,Others include Great Communicators Champion Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd, Opaluwa Eleojo Bob-Simon, NUEE State Chapter, Adeyemi Abiodun Abayomi, Adaramoye Michael Tobiloba, Popoola Festus as 6th to 11th respondents respectively.

……….Mr Mohammed, in his four-ground argument, said the accounts as contained in the schedule in respect of which reliefs sought are subject of investigation and are reasonably suspected to,,,,,be warehousing proceeds of unlawful activities or fraud.

“If there is any dealing with the account by way of withdrawal or transfer to another account by the persons under investigation/investigator and the persons that have absolute power to deal with the account……will render nugatory any consequential order(s) which the court may make at the conclusion of this application,” he said.

,,,,,,,According to him, the accounts are used to promote the offence of criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, cyberbullying and cyberstalking which was illegally transferred to the account of the accused persons now at large.

,,,,,,,“That the accused persons were involved in hosting another country’s flag in order to undermine the sovereignty of Nigerian state,” he said.