Prominent Lagos-based lawyer, Ebun-olu Adegboruwa, has faulted the position of the Federal High Court in Abuja that all depositors in Nigerian banks without the Biometric Verification Number should lose their deposits to the Federal Government.
Adegboruwa stated his position in a statement he signed on Saturday but obtained by The Eagle Online on Sunday.
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, headed by Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, had granted the interim forfeiture order based on a request by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
Adegboruwa’s statement reads: “I’ve received the certified true copy of the interim orders of the federal high court, coral Dimgba, J., granting various interim orders in favour fo the federal government of Nigeria, against all accounts in all banks that have no BVN. The said orders were said to have been granted at the behest of the Honorable Attorney-General of the Federation.
“I am very well concerned about how we deploy interim orders for permanent purposes, such as to forfeit valuable assets, without any or fair hearing from the person(s) concerned.
“I think it is improper to obtain interim orders to freeze bank accounts of estates that are in dispute between the beneficiaries, of estates of deceased persons that are still being contested, of profits of companies that are still subject to litigation or other disputes, just to mention a few examples of the arbitrariness of these orders.
“There is nothing in section 3 of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011, that makes BVN a condition precedent for operating a bank account in Nigeria. Nothing at all. What the law requires is verifiable identity of the customer, such as name, address,
photographs, identity cards, etc. BVN is policy decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a court of law should not based its orders on executive policies that are not backed by law.
“I get truly worried with the way we adopt ex-parte applications to determine very serious and weighty issues of law.
“The other point is the bindingness of an ex-parte Order upon the whole world and upon all millions of bank customers in Nigeria, who are not directly parties to the suit. How proper is it, for a court to seek to determine the rights of parties in their absence, in view of the clear provisions of section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution and Article 7 of the African Charter.
“Why this desperation, if one may ask? I support that money suspected to be proceeds of crime should be traced, isolated and forfeited, if the owner cannot successfully account for it. But to proceed to seek to forfeit all monies in all banks meant for all customers in Nigeria, on the ground of absence of BVN is manifestly illegal.
“I therefore humbly urge the Honorable Attorney-General of the federation to review this case with a view to tempering the tenor of these rather outlandish orders.
“The quest to scoop revenue for government should not be at the detriment of the constitutional and fundamental rights of the citizens. Which is why I have been praying that these orders are not real, but rather one of the usual social media gimmicks.
“As it is said, take away your prosperity, take away your kindness and goodwill, but by all means just give me my rights and my freedoms.”
