Who Tampered With The N2.2bn Case Against Top Supreme Court Men?

Prosecuting counsel, Mr. Charles Adeogun-Phillips, in a surprise move on Thursday, withdrew from the trial of a Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, who is being prosecuted by the Federal Government for money laundering charges involving over N500m.


Adeogun-Phillips, a private legal practitioner and a former respected prosecutor at ICC, announced his decision to withdraw from the suit when the case came up for continuation of trial before Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday.

Sources close to the prosecutor revealed that the withdrawal of Adeogun-Phillips from Ngwuta’s trial was “a mixture of protest and factors of the recent cold relationship between him and the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation”.

The protest by the lawyer was said to be against Tuesday’s dropping of charges earlier filed against the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Ahmed Saleh, and two other officials of the apex court.

The charges withdrawn by the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation against Saleh, Muhammed Abdulrahman Sharif and Rilwanu Lawal involved alleged diversion of N2.2bn belonging to the apex court.

The 3 Supreme Court officials were also accused of receiving gratifications totalling N74.4m from private contractors who were providing services to the Supreme Court between 2009 and 2016.

Adeogun-Phillips was engaged by the Federal Government to also lead the prosecution of the apex court’s officials but was absent when a lawyer from the Federal Ministry of Justice, Mrs Hajara Yusuf, announced the withdrawal of the charges before a High Court on Tuesday.

A source familiar with the handling of the judges’ and court officials’ cases told Punch that, “The Chief Registrar case is the biggest among these cases concerning judges but if you notice they were never arraigned.

“The claim that they dropped the charges so that he could be used as witness in Ngwuta’s trial is just a facade. The truth is that his evidence is not going to do much in Ngwuta’s case.

“Adeogun-Phillips noticed that the government is not ready to prosecute the Chief Registrar and others because all the three are northerners.

“He asked the authorities, ‘why do you prosecute one and leave the other? If we are fighting corruption let us know we are fighting corruption, if we are not, let us know we are not’.

“When he could no longer agree on a number of issues he had to quit..."

Many have said a cabal has hijacked Buhari's government and only their enemies are allowed to be prosecuted, while those they like are allowed to go free. How true? I guess time will tell.