By Patrick Ahanor
Benin City
Respite came the way of former Secretary to Edo State Government (SSG), Dr. Simon Imuekheme, and three others yesterday after a Benin High Court discharged and acquitted them of alleged misappropriation of N113 million State Universal Basic Education fund.
Others, in the case brought before the court in March 2014 by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), included ex- chairman of Edo SUBEB, Sir. Joseph Emoabino, David Eson Igbinoba and Aghator Gaskin Efe.
ICPC had arraigned the quadruplet on an eight-count charge of diversion and misappropriation of SUBEB fund.
Delivering judgement in the matter yesterday, Justice Esther Edigin struck out the charges because according to her, the prosecutor failed in his case when it charged the accused persons under Section 22, (5) of the ICPC Act 2000.
She said: “The corrupt practices and other related offences Act 2000 under which these persons were arraigned had seized to be part of the body of Nigeria law; haven been repealed by section 55 of the Corrupt Practices and other Related offences Act 2003.
“So, at the time the accused persons were said to have committed that offence stated in the charge of 2000 Act, it was no longer in existence.
“It would be travesty of justice to convict one under a non-existing law.
“Flowing from the above laws, I found the preliminary objections of all the four accused persons have merits and the 8 count charge on each and every one of them is hereby struck out.”
Responding, Counsel to Imuekheme, O. A. Omonuwa, described the judgement as “an extraordinary exhibition of a mastery of law.”
“All the judges needs is the enabling environment, support. What we did was to provide all the laws to the court and you can see that the court took time to go through all of these things and gave a fantastic judgment.”
On his part, Imuokheme attributed the judgement to the will of God, adding that he would continue to render his service to the state when called upon.
