The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, yesterday, varied the orders it made on October 17, which directed 19 commercial banks in the country to freeze all accounts without Bank Verification Numbers, BVN
Justice Nnamdi Dimgba modified part of the order that granted the Federal Government interim ownership of funds in all non BVN-linked bank accounts. The variation was a sequel to an agreement the Federal Government reached with the 19 commercial banks, yesterday. In his ruling, Justice Dimgba said he was minded to “revise” the earlier orders, in view of the fact that it had been posing some “practical problems.”
This is because before yesterday, unfreezing the accounts without BVN, even with the account owners visiting the banks to undertake the BVN registration, would have amounted to a violation of one of the orders of the court as the previous ruling did not make BVN registration a pre-condition for unfreezing such accounts. So in practical terms, account owners, even after completing BVN registrations would not have been able to access to their account until the determination of the case in court.
The Justice remarked that that aspect of the previous ruling had created “awkward and unfortunate result.”
Following an ex-parte motion filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, the court, therefore, directed banks to immediately unfreeze accounts that had since been linked to a BVN after the orders were made on October 17.
The court further revoked an aspect of the order, which had directed an interim forfeiture of the proceeds in all the accounts without BVN pending the determination of the substantive suit.
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After stealing from the national treasury they are now targeting the citizen’s money. Ole
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They were in a hurry to draft the order and forgot to consider the practical implications.