You can't probe Sanusi — Court

Justice James Tsoho of the Federal High Court, sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Monday stopped the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) from further investigation of the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

Specifically, the court held that the FRCN which had earlier indicted the suspended CBN governor, lacks the powers to investigate him.

Delivering judgment in a suit filed by Sanusi challenging the powers of the FRCN and its Executive Secretary, Mr. Jim Osayande Obase to probe him, Justice Tsoho who upheld all the prayers of Mr. Sanusi, declared that the action taken by the council was biased, malicious, premeditated, frivolous, deliberately skewed, malafide and an abuse of executive power.

Before the judgement, Justice Tsoho had earlier dismissed an application by FRCN that the judge lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit, ruling that the matter before him was a fundamental right issue which the court could adjudicate upon.

It would be recalled that Sanusi had approached the court seeking to restrain the FRCN from investigating him. In a suit filed by his counsel, Kola Awodehin (SAN), he prayed the court for a declaration that the FRCN, by constituting itself into an investigating body in the manner expressed in some newspaper publications of March 24, went beyond its powers.