A Federal High Court in Abuja has been urged to lift the order it made on November 4 this year freezing the accounts of some individuals alleged to have been behind the #EndSARS protest.
The request is contained in an application filed by the law firm of Falana and Falana’s Chambers, on behalf of 16 of the 20 individuals
and firms affected by the order made by Justice Ahmed Mohammed, upon an ex-parte motion by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
It is the contention of the applicants that the freezing of their accounts, without their being heard, was unlawful and a violation of their fundamental human rights.
The applicants specifically prayed for an order, setting aside “the mandatory ex-parte order made
on the 4th day of November, 2020 in this suit freezing all the identifiable and/or traceable bank accounts of the 1, 2, 3, 5, 6,7, 8, 10 12, 13, 14,15, 17 and 20th defendants/applicants herein.”
The grounds of their application, includes that the the ex-parte order was made to validate an illegal act because the applicant “unlawfully froze the accounts of the defendants/applicants before
seeking and obtaining the orders of the court on November 4, 2020.
They argued that the order ex-parte was anchored on on misrepresentation of material facts and based on suppression of material facts, adding that it constitutes a gross abuse of the process of the court.
