The Federal High Court in Lagos has dismissed the Nigerian Government’s suit seeking to recover and forfeit the sum of N70tn naira from 29 bank accounts allegedly belonging to some looters.
Justice Peter Lifu held that the government’s lawyers did not diligently prosecute the case, and expressed shock that the Plaintiff Counsel and subsequently another lawyer “suddenly developed cold feet over this alleged public interest case.”
The suit was filed through an ex-parte motion on August 5, 2021, and the interim order freezing the accounts was made on August 6, 2021. The case was later reassigned to Justice Lifu, who vacated the Ex-parte Order on May 27, 2022, after the government failed to comply with it for over nine months.
The nineteen defendants and respondents include major Nigerian commercial banks such as Zenith Bank, Polaris Bank, Citi Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank, and foreign banks like Standard Chartered Bank, among others.
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