EFCC vs Jang: What happened in court on Tuesday.

A Plateau High Court on Tuesday, fixed Dec. 23 for adoption
of final written addresses on the alleged N6.3 billion fraud
case against former Governor, Jonah Jang and his former
cashier in the cabinet office, Mr Yusuf Pam.
Jang and Pam are being prosecuted by EFCC over 12 Count
charge of alleged money laundering of the sum of N6.3
billion during his(Jang) eight-year tenure as Governor of
Plateau between 2007 and 2015.
Justice Daniel Longji, the presiding Judge of High Court 4,
made the pronouncement shortly after the hearing of the
case in which a mild drama unfolded.
News Agency of Nigeria reports that when the case came up
on Tuesday for continuation of hearing, Mr H.E. Ejega, EFCC
counsel, while expressing reasons why the defence counsel
including Chief Mike Ezokhome and Mr Edward Pwajok both
SANs, could not file their replies to final addresses of “No
case submissions”, described the activities of the defence
counsel as “very mischievous” and “unprofessional “.
“It’s true that we last adjourned today, Tuesday, Dec. 17
within which all parties would have filed their written
addresses having given the defendants 14 days and to the
prosecution, 10 days
“ But we want to hereby vent our disappointment on the style
of practice adopted by the defence, which is never known to
the practice of the law profession.

“Even though they filed their written addresses of No case
submission out of time, they chose to serve us of their
processes in the office of our client, the EFCC, instead of
Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) office, which is our address and so
denied us of the opportunity of being aware of the service
effected on Dec. 4.
“In fact, only yesterday, Monday, Dec. 16 that the EFCC
brought the processes to our notice and of course, we
couldn’t have replied them and filed ours before today,
Tuesday, Dec. 17.
“To further show the defendants intended mischief, we
found out that out of the blues there is an appeal in their
written addresses on our amended charges
“So My Lord, they can’t claim they weren’t aware of our
address which is public before this court but did it
deliberately to deny us of the opportunity to meet up with
the time of filing our addresses by serving our client, the
EFCC instead.
“By this constraint, we urge your Lordship to humbly give us
more time to enable us file our addresses with counting
starting from the day (Dec. 16) we were served, “ the
prosecution counsel pleaded.
Responding, Ezokhome, who was visibly angry with the
submission of the prosecution counsel, described the
submission of the counsel as “not only unprofessional and
unethical but grossly infamous.”
The SAN said it was the type of submission that the court
should never tolerate nor allow and should use strong
words to warn “never again should it repeat itself.”
“The prosecution counsel used strong and despicable
words, which are full of mischief and unprofessional and
provocative even with their glaring and abysmal failure to
meet up the ruling of this honourable court.
“My Lord, their game plan is simple, which I will urge your
Lordship not allow. Having seen their case has crumbled
before their very eyes, and having worsen it with their
amended charges, even when they know your Lordship has
only Dec. 31 to retire, they want to take the cheap and ugly
way out by seeing that the case starts afresh.
“We want to submit that it is actually the Prosecution that is
mischievous and whose style of practice is questionable
and highly unprofessional.
“Let’s take their claim that we filed our addresses out of
time, the best way they would have attacked us was to
come to your Lordship with a motion on notice that we filed
out of time through preliminary objections.
“They can’t sit down in their office and decide for the court
what is right and what is wrong. If you look at section 5(2)
of the interpretation Act of the Law of FRN (2004) as
amended, we filed our processes on Dec. 2, which if
calculated, we were not out of time from Nov. 19.
“Again, we served the EFCC office with our processes on
Dec. 4 because that is the address on the last document,
which is the amended charges, so where is our fault here
when the EFCC chose to only notify 12 days after?”, he said
queried.
According to Ezokhome, “there is even no evidence to show
that they were only notified yesterday, Dec. 16 but a tale no
one should take serious. My Lord shouldn’t believe such a
story.”
He urged the court to order the prosecution counsel to
apologise over the “foul language” he used and the “lies” he
told against/on the defense counsels.
“On their application for time to reply and file their
addresses, we wouldn’t say let them be denied, but they
should be given only two days to effect that so that your
Lordship will have the opportunity to give judgment on this
case, “ Ezokhome pleaded.
Also speaking, Mr Sunday Odey, lead Counsel to the 2nd
defendant, Pam, also relied on the submission of Ezokhome
and said “having violated the order of the court, the
prosecution shouldn’t have been heard at all but for justice
sake.”
Justice Longji, in his ruling, ordered the prosecution counsel
to apologise to the defense counsel and Ejega quickly
apologised with a promise it would not repeat itself.
The judge then gave the prosecution Thursday within which
to reply and file their final written address.
He adjourned the case to Dec. 23 for adoption of final
written addresses by all parties involved in the case.