Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Thursday adjourned till July 6 further hearing in one of the three suits relating to the N8 billion CBN mutilated currency scam.
The adjournment is to give parties the time to tidy up the filing and service of all pending applications.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was served a motion minutes before the commencement of sitting.
Mr B.B.M Hashim, representing Mr Olalekan Ojo, the lead counsel to the second and third defendants, Olaniran Adeola and Togun Philip, confirmed serving EFCC on Thursday morning.
“We filed and served the prosecution our application and written addresses this morning,” he said.
Similarly, Mr M. Yussuf, representing Mr Olayinka Bolanle, the counsel to the first defendant, Kolawole Babalola, told the court that his applications were being filed at the court’s registry.
“As I speak, we are attempting to file two applications which should be ready in the next five to 10 minutes,” he said.
However, Mr F. Edema, representing the fourth defendant, Tope Akintade, drew the attention of the court to the fact that being a joint-trial, all counsel should have copies of filed applications.
“By this, I mean to say that we are yet to be served any of these applications,” he said.
The trial judge agreed that it was the practice for all counsel involved in joint-trial cases to be served copies of all filed applications.
He, therefore, adjourned till July 6 for hearing of all pending applications, stressing that such applications were to be promptly filed and served on all the counsel.
Four sister cases before Justice Adeyinka Faji of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, suffered the same fate on Wednesday.
Faji likewise had to adjourn till July 10 to enable all counsel in the cases to file and exchange all pending applications.
The EFCC had on June 2 and June 3 arraigned 22 bank officials, including seven employees of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over the mutilated currency scam.
The anti-graft agency alleged that the CBN officials caused adversity to the country’s economy by putting back in circulation mutilated currency marked for destruction.
