Yesterday, several online news platforms carried a story on a supposed
authorisation by the Federal High Court in Lagos to the AGF to begin the
immediate prosecution of Chairman/CEO of Innoson Group for forgery. Now
Innoson Group has through its company spokesperson Cornel Osigwe
released a statement to counter the said publication.
Read after the cut...
Our attention has been drawn to a news report published by various
online media that the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has authorised
the Attorney-General of Federation (AGF) to commence the prosecution of
a Lagos businessman, Innocent Chukwuma, his company, Innoson Nigeria
Limited, and four others for alleged forgery. Ordinarily, we would not
have dignified this news report with a response but in a nation where
silence may be seen as an admission of guilt, we therefore come out to
state the true position of things.
Although there is a charge pending against Innoson Nigeria Ltd, the
charge is a trumped up. To this end, the police have through its letter
of 17th February 2016 discontinued the charge in order to further
investigate the matter. Also, Director of Public Prosecution of the
Federation through paragraph 10 of its opinion referenced DPPF
30/03/2016 contained in the policy file of the Ministry of Justice
directed that the charge be discontinued and the file sent back to the
police to further investigate the matter.
The court never ordered or directed the Attorney General of the
Federation to take over the case since and more importantly no court in
Nigeria has such power over the AGF.
Already Innoson has over N15billion judgment in its favour against
Guaranty Trust Bank (who is sponsoring the charge) in suit no
Fhc/AWK/CS/139/2012, suit no Fhc/L/CS/603/2006 and Appeal no
CA/I/258/2011 and Appeal no CA/E/288/2014. The charge is to blackmail
Innoson and to force it to forgo the judgments sums of over N15Billion.
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