A prominent Nigerian lawyer, Emeka Ozoani, SAN, has accused the Nigeria Police Force of complicity in bank seizures of accounts owned by citizens of Nigeria.
In a statement made available to NEWSWIRE Law and Events Magazine, the learned silk lamented the agonizing manner in which Nigerians have, over the years, had to live with the pain occasioned by frequent cases of banks freezing their accounts with the active collaboration of the Police – via an order illegally sought by said Police and granted by the Magistrate Court.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria went on to recount how the account of a customer (which was domiciled in Lagos) was frozen by an order obtained by the Police in the Magistrate Court of Nasarawa State! He described such an act as a contravention of extant law.
‘The law is clear,’ Ozoani said in the statement, ‘that only the Federal High Court has the vires to make a freezing order. See the CBN Act, 2007 and the Currency (Freezing Orders) Act, 1971.’
Ozoani added that the resort by the Nigerian Police to an already-repealed law, namely, the English Evidence Bankers Act 1879, was unlawful and a flagrant abuse of state power. He went on to buttress his position in this regard with the case of ONAGORUWA VS. IGP (1991) 5 NWLR (Pt. 189) 593 CA Tobi, JCA (as he then was).
In a further insult to the sensibilities of customers, Ozoani said, banks usually fail to verify and satisfy themselves that the said order was genuine and emanated from a court of competent jurisdiction – failure of which, he warned, the bank was in breach of its duty to the customer.
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