A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory on Tuesday, discharged and acquitted the suspended Director General of the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, Mounir Gwarzo.
The acquittal followed the dismissal by the court of a five-count charge the Independent and Corrupt Practices and Other Related Commission (ICPC) preferred against him and the Executive Commissioner, Corporate Services at the establishment, Zakawaru Garuba. .
The court, in its ruling delivered by Justice Husseini Baba-Yusuf, dismissed the five-count charge marked CR/185/18, in which the commission accused him of misappropriating public funds to the tune of about N115million.
The anti-graft agency had told the court that the defendants committed the offence in June 2015, alleging that Gwarzo pocketed over N104.8 million as severance benefit, less than a month after he was appointed as Director General of SEC.
Similarly, the suspended Director General was accused of receiving over N10 million as a car grant, contrary to Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000 just as the anti-graft commission alleged that the 2nd defendant was involved in the fraud by conferring a corrupt advantage on another public officer.
Zakawaru Garuba was said to have approved the payments that were made to the suspended SEC boss.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court upheld a no-case-submission the Defendants filed with respect to all the allegations against them as Justice Baba-Yusuf said he was satisfied that the totality of the proof of evidence was not enough to establish a prima-facie case that would require the court to compel the Defendants to enter their defence to the charge.
The court held further that ICPC failed to prove any of the essential elements of the offence against the Defendants, maintaining that the evidence adduced by the ICPC were not only contradictory, but were manifestly discredited to the extent that no reasonable court or tribunal could rely on it to convict the Defendants.
The trial judge held: “The 1st Defendant is hereby discharged and acquitted of counts 1, 2 and 3 and by inference, all the charge against him.”
Justice Baba-Yusuf also acquitted the 2nd Defendant, Zakawaru Garuba, of the two counts against him.
It would be recalled that the court had on May 6, 2018, granted the Defendants bail in the sum of N25 millio each and a surety each in like sum, following their pleading not guilty to the charge.
Earlier, Gwarzo was in November 2017, suspended by the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun for alleged financial recklessness.
The allegations levelled against the Defendants read, inter alia: “That you, Mounir Gwarzo, on or about June 2015, while being the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, received the sum of N104,851,154.94 as severance benefits when you had yet to retire, resign or disengage from the service of SEC; conferred a corrupt advantage upon yourself and committed an offence under Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000.
“That you committed a criminal breach of trust to wit: dishonestly misappropriated the sum of N104,851,154.94 as your severance benefit contrary to Section 311 and punishable under Section 312 of the Penal Code Cap 532 Vol 4 of FCT Abuja 2007.
“That you conferred a corrupt advantage upon yourself when you received the sum of N10,983,488.88 in excess of car grant payable to you and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act”, the minister added.
