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Orji Kalu back in Senate as EFCC presses for fresh trial
BY IGWE OKOSO
Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, just released from Kuje Correctional facility, was back at the senate chamber today, June 9 2020, where he resumed duty as the senator representing Abia North as well as the Chief Whip of the senate.
The lawmaker, who was a former governor of Abia, told newsmen who besieged him that his goal was to complete the task he had not attended to in the last six months.
“There is hope. A lot of things still needed to be done. You people should allow me go and do the job I have not done for my constituency,” he said.
He noted that his constituents still believed in him because on his track record as a governor.
“They know I was action governor and I am going to be action senator; so, there is no problem.
“Let’s keep hope alive and see what the future brings,” he said.
But while Kalu was settling down inside the senate chambers, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which prosecuted the case that saw the lawmaker sent to prison, said it was waiting for the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to reassign the case of the former governor, so that his fresh trial ordered by the Supreme Court could start.
READ: Supreme Court nullifies Orji Kalu’s imprisonment!
Kalu was sentenced to 12 years in prison for stealing over N7 billion Abia State money, by a Lagos Division of the Federal High Court presided over by Justice Mohammed Idris on December 5, 2019.
The judgment was however, set aside by a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court leading to his release, June 4 2020.
The prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, Mr Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), according to The Punch report, said that the anti-graft agency had already applied to the Federal High Court Chief Judge to assign the case to a judge who will now handle it.
Jacobs said, “We are not filing new charges. We have applied to the CJ to reassign the case in line with the decision of the Supreme Court. We have yet to see whether it has been assigned.”