A federal capital territory (FCT)
high court has discharged Mounir Gwarzo, suspended director-general of the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in the N115 million fraud suit filed
against him.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Hussein
Baba-Yusuf, the judge, held that the prosecution could not establish any prima
facie case against the defendants.
Zakwanu Garba, the co-defendant
and executive commissioner of the commission, was also freed.
The Independent Corrupt Practices
and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had filed a five-count charge
against Gwarzo and Garuba bordering on alleged misappropriation fund and
conferment of corrupt advantage on a public officer .
Gwarzo was said to have received
N104,851,154.94 as severance benefits and N10,983,488.88 in excess of car grant
when he served as the director-general of the commission.
Garba was accused of conniving
with Gwarzo to commit the fraud but the duo pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In 2017, Kemi Adeosun, former
minister of finance, had suspended Gwarzo and constituted a panel to probe the
allegations.
Baba-Yusuf said the prosecution
team was unable to establish beyond reasonable doubt the essential elements of
the offence for which the defendants were charged.
The judge maintained that the
prosecution, by its admission, through witnesses and evidence proved that the
offences the defendants were accused of were products of decisions of the
governing board of SEC, which is the highest decision-making body of the
commission.
“Furthermore, exhibit 19, which
is a memo from the governing board of SEC, has clearly demonstrated that the
decisions of the board of SEC as the highest decision and policy-making body of
commission is legal,” the judge ruled.
“As a result of this, the first
defendant is acquitted on the first charge.
“The burden of proof was on the
prosecution but through its own exhibit, which includes a board resolution
which approved the car benefit for an executive director who had spent more
than two years in office, the charge against Mister Gwarzo has not been
established.”
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