According to Justice Egwuatu, “The surety for the umpteenth time failed to produce the second defendant in court.”
According to the post by the EFCC on its official Twitter page, @officialEFCC, the second defendant, James Nolan, a British national, is at the centre of an ongoing $9.6bn Process and Industrial Development scam trial.
Nolan, a director with Goidel Resources Limited, a Designated Non-Financial Institution, with another company, ICIL Limited, are standing trial on 16 counts bordering on money laundering to the tune of $9.5bn.
In September 2022, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the arrest of Nolan, said to have jumped bail and stopped appearing for trial, regarding the controversial P&ID $9.6bn judgement.
The prosecuting counsel, Bala Sanga, had earlier lamented the deliberate ploy by the defence counsel to delay the trial, saying the court had been magnanimous to the defence for over six months.
He therefore urged the court to ignore the defence’s prayer for more time to produce the defendant and order the forfeiture of the N100m bail bond to the government.
Lamenting, Sanga said, “My lord, it is very clear that the defence cannot produce the second defendant. Enough time has been given; asking the court for more time amounts to taking the court for granted. The same story was told in September and today, the story has not changed.
Responding, the defence counsel, Michael Ajara, again pleaded with the court for a short adjournment to give the surety the opportunity to make a written application and show cause regarding all the facts of the case, before taking any decision.
