The Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday ordered that the President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Mr. Amaju Pinnick, and four other officers charged with fraud involving the sums of $8.4m and N4bn, should be served with the copies of the charges through their offices.
It is mandatory that criminal charges must be served personally on a defendant, but can be served through any other means with the express permission of the court
PUNCH report that Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu made the order for substituted service of the charges on the defendants on Tuesday after the prosecuting counsel, Dr. Celsius Ukpong complained that the defendants, who are all NFF officials, had been evading personal service.
Ukpong, who is prosecuting the case on behalf of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel and the Recovery for Public Property, said the defendants were granted bail but all efforts to get them served with the charges had proved abortive.
He informed the judge of his pending ex parte application which he had filed to request the permission of the court to serve the defendants through substituted means.
He said, “We have not been able to serve the defendants with the copies of the charges.
“As a consequence, we have filed an ex parte motion for substituted service.
“The defendants are evading service.
“We have been to their offices. They are on what we call administrative bail.
“But (we)have been calling them to come to pick up the copies to their charges and we have been to their offices to serve them, all to no avail.
“We want to serve them through their offices by virtue of section 125 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act.”
None of the five defendants or their lawyers was present in court when Ukpong moved his ex parte application on Tuesday.
Ruling, Justice Ojukwu granted the application as requested.
