Paris Club: Court refuses application to stop Nwoko’s fee

A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday refused an application by the Rivers State Government seeking to stop the payment of N1 billion consultancy/legal fees to former lawmaker, Mr Ned Nwoko.

Justice Nnamdi Dimgba refused the application on the grounds that the amount was part of consent judgment agreed by the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), as consultancy fee for the recovery of N522.74 billion foreign loans deductions.

Another Federal High Court judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole had on May 9 endorsed the sum of N1bn agreed by the NGF as legal fees out of the N22bn demanded by Nwoko.

Nwoko through his counsel, K.C.O Njemanze (SAN) brought a garnishee application seeking to deduct the sum from source.

But Rivers State through its counsel, Ezenwa Ibegbunam brought a preliminary objection seeking to adjourn the garnishee indefinitely, adding that the state never agreed on the terms for the deductions.

In a writ of summons filed against the NGF and seven others, Nwoko sought an order of court directing the forum to pay his consultancy/legal fees from the N413.6 billion already released by the Federal Government, as agreed in his engagement letter to recover the accruals from the funds wrongly deducted by the Paris Club and London Club between 1995 and 2005.

A new date for hearing will be decided by the court.