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Benue, Plateau accounts not frozen – Federal High Court

The Federal High Court said on Friday that it did not make any  order to freeze the accounts of Benue and Plateau state governments as reported in some sections of the media.

 

Some newspapers (PUNCH not included) had reported on May 12 that Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Abuja division of the court ordered the freezing of the accounts of the two states in his ruling on separate garnishee applications filed against them by the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria.

 

Chief Registrar of the court, Mrs. Rosemary Oghoghorie, told journalists in her office in Abuja that the order of the court which was misrepresented in the media only restrained the two state governments from touching certain amount of money in the  state accounts.

 

“The Federal High Court did not grant any order to freeze the accounts of the two states. All that the Federal High Court did was to grant ‘order nisi’ which means that certain amount of money in the accounts of Benue and Plateau state governments should not be touched,” Oghoghorie said.

 

She explained that freezing an account was different from “attaching” certain amount of money in the said account.

 

She said when certain amount of money was attached in an account it implied that any withdrawal that would leave the said account with a balance less than the amount attached would be impossible.

 

She said, “To freeze an account is that you cannot withdraw from an account, while to attach certain amount in the account means that the owner of the account cannot touch certain amount of money in the account. To attach does not mean you cannot withdraw from the account.

“In the case of Benue, the amount attached is N957,630,349.57 while in the case of Plateau, the amount attached was  N673,019,948.19.”

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A copy of the court order with respect to that of Benue which was sighted by our correspondent  read in part, “That an order nisi is hereby made attaching the money belonging to the 15th and 16th judgment debtors/respondents domiciled with Skye Bank Plc, Makurdi Branch – account number 170008758 – to satisfy the judgment awarded in favour of the judgment creditor/applicant.

 

“The garnishee to show cause why the order nisi should not be made absolute by the court.”

 

 

The order of attachment was made for  the bankers of Plateau and Benue states to appear in court on June 1 to show why they should not be made to pay the sums of money from the accounts of the states to satisfy the judgment it gave on judiciary autonomy on January 13, 2014.

 

Justice Ademola, who had delivered the judgment in favour of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, granted the fresh order in his ruling on separate garnishee  applications the union filed against the two states on April 20, 2015.

 

The union stated  in the separate applications that the amount due to Benue State judiciary “as of March 2015, is N957,630,349.57,” and the amount due to the Plateau State judiciary for the same period is N673,019,948.19.