19th December, 2019
Mohammed Bello Adoke, former Attorney-general and justice minister, declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, is on his way to Nigeria from Dubai.
A Premium Times report said he left Dubai Thursday morning after he was freed by the Interpol.
It is not clear whether the EFCC will arrest him on arrival in Abuja at 3:40 p.m. local time, as it has no subsisting arrest warrant to do so.
He was arrested by Interpol on November 11 after arriving in the UAE for medical check-up and summarily taken into custody.
His arrest followed an Interpol red alert which the Nigerian government had issued against him as part of the ongoing legal actions over the controversial Malabu Oil deal.
But the UAE authorities freed him after Nigeria failed to provide legal basis and other requisite bilateral supports to justify his continued detention, the online newspaper reported.
The arrest warrant upon which Mr Adoke was arrested was nullified in October by Justice Zanchi, Federal Capital Territory High Court. The same judge had issued an arrest warrant against Adoke, alongside former oil minister, Dan Etete in April.
Adoke’s lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, got the court to cancel the earlier order based on his argument that it was procured wrongfully, following an ex-parte request by EFCC.
“I was able to explain to the court that the order breached my client’s right to a fair hearing. That no criminal charge had ever been served on him to warrant him been wanted for evading trial and that the order was made without full disclosure by the EFCC regarding the entire facts concerning Adoke especially that he had been acquitted in this same charges by another federal high court presided by Justice Nyako”, Ozekhome said then in October.