Chioma Obinagwam
Chief Magistrate Chinyere Nweoachenu of Wuse Magistrate Court in Abuja has dismissed all applications brought before her by BGL Plc. and her subsidiaries objecting to their trial before the court.
Nigeria’s Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed in a statement.
The Chief Magistrate therefore fixed definite hearing of the case for Wednesday October 2, 2018.
In her ruling on the applications, Magistrate Nweoachenu stated that ongoing civil matters in another court does not affect the hearing of the criminal case before the Magistrate Court.
According to her, “this matter is a criminal one while the one before the Federal High Court is a civil case. Also, none of the cases in the Federal High Court are between same parties in this case. In this case, the Commissioner of Police is a party, but he is not a party in the suit in the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.”
“Sections 304 and 305 of the Investments and Securities Act 2007 states that where in the course of its investigation, the Commission discovers evidence of possible criminality, the Commission shall be obliged to pass such information to the appropriate criminal prosecuting authorities, such as, the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Attorney-General of a State and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,” she added.
It further states that where an offence under this Act has been committed by a company, every person who at the time the offence was committed was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company, as well as the company, shall be deemed to be guilty of the offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against.
The Companies and their officials were charged before the court on allegations of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and cheating contrary to Section 936 (312) (322) (323) of the Penal Code.
The Chief Magistrate stated that the First Information Report (FIR) in law does not constitute evidence, therefore it would be premature for the court to establish a prima facie case as evidence has not been taken. She therefore dismissed all three applications for lack of merit.
BGL Plc. and her subsidiaries had filed 4 different applications against their trial which centered on the FIR before the court and jurisdiction of the court to hear the matter.
Recall that top officials of BGL Group were on September 28, 2018 arraigned before the Chief Magistrate Court, Zone 6, Abuja on charges of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and cheating.
Those arraigned included the Deputy Managing Director of the Company, Chibundu Edozie, who was docked along with three other accused for allegedly conspiring with some other staff of BGL to commit the offences against the investing public.
They were arraigned pursuant to a petition filed by Mahmoud Usman, Ann Orsule, Sylvanus Ghasarah, Eno Efanga, UN Staff Thrift Credit Cooperative Society of Anambra State (Abuja office) and Adejoke Atte, among others against them before the Securities and Exchange Commission.
