Rochas Okorocha drags EFCC to court, demands N1bn damages
The former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, has filed suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja, demanding the sum of N1billon from the Economic and Finance Crimes Commission (EFCC), alleging gross violation of his fundamental human rights.
Rochas, in the suit he filed through a team of lawyers led by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and sighted on Monday night, had aside from asking for monetary compensation as exemplary damages against the anit-graft agency, equally demanded a public apology to be published in at least three national newspapers.
He cited the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, as the 2nd defendant in the matter.
According to report, the former governor was on 24 May, arrested by operatives of the EFCC in an operation that lasted over seven hours. The arrest followed his alleged refusal to make himself available for trial on a 17- count money laundering charge that was entered against him and six others.
Rochas, who was accused of complicity in the illegal diversion of funds from the Imo State treasury totaling over N2.9 billion, was subsequently arraigned before trial Justice Inyang Ekwo on Monday alongside a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Anyim Nyerere Chinenye and five companies Naphtali International Limited, Consolid Project Consultants Limited, Pramif International Limited and Legend World Concepts Limited.
Rochas alleged that EFCC operatives had after they besieged his home, cut off electricity supply, manhandled his domestic staff and relatives after some of their phones were seized. He applied for an order of injunction restraining the respondents (jointly or severally) from intimidating him, threatening his life, arresting or detaining him.
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