Mohammed Abacha faces fresh corruption charge

Mohammed Abacha, son of late head of state General Sani Abacha, is facing fresh charge bothering on corruption.

The federal government filed a new charge against Mohammed Abacha accusing him of unlawfully receiving N446.3 billion allegedly stolen from government’s coffers between 1995 and 1998.

Mohammed is alleged to have “dishonestly received stolen property” and “voluntarily assisted in concealing money.” The charge replaced the earlier one of 121 counts in which he was charged alongside with Atiku Bagudu. The government has now excluded Bagudu from the fresh charge.

According to the new charge marked CR.21-24/2008, the stolen money allegedly received by Mohammed, and which he is accused of concealing include 141,100,000 pound sterling and 384,353,000 US dollars made up of cash and travellers cheques.

The charge dated February 24, 2014 was filed by a private prosecutor, Daniel Enwelum, who is prosecuting the case on behalf of the Federal Government and upon a fiat dated February 18, 2014 issued to him by the Attorney general of the federation.

Mohammed’s absence in court stalled his planned arraignment on the new charge yesterday before Justice Mamman Kolo of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.

Enwelum told the court that even when Mohammed had been served with the charge, he refused to attend court to for him to be arraigned.

He said the lawyer, Abdulllahi Haruna has promised to receive the charge for his client.

Haruna said Mohammed was absent in court because he was not aware of the new charge.

Lawyer to Bagudu, Rickey Tarfa (SAN) urged the court to grant an order discharging his client from charge in view of the prosecution’s decision to exclude him from the new charge.

Ruling, Justice Kolo allowed the amended charge. He also granted an order discharging Bagudu from the charge and adjourned to April 29 for Mohammed’s arraignment.