OGHENETEJIRI NYERHOVWO
High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, former Niger Delta ex-agitator led hundreds of his maritime workers in a peaceful protest against continued confiscation of his jetty and other assets by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)five months after a Federal High Court had vindicated him of all the corruption charges framed against him by the anti-graft agency.
It could be recalled that a Lagos Division of the Federal High Court had on Wednesday, 15th July, 2020 dismissed all the 40-count charges bordering on alleged N34 billion fraud filed by EFCC against Global West Vessel Specialist Limited, a company linked to Tompolo.
The Court upheld the ‘no case submission’ by Tompolo and set him free of all the allegations as “the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case” against him.
Speaking in Warri through Chief Keston Pondi, Managing Director of his maritime firm, Mieko Dive, Tompolo
noted with concern that he has since the Court judgement made several unsuccessful efforts to reach the government agencies, particularly the EFCC to return his confiscated jetty and other properties that were wrongfully seized in the course of his travails.
According to him, “let Nigerians note that today, more than five months after the courts vindicated me by quashing all charges of corruption levelled against me, the Nigerian state, through the EFCC has refused to return my properties unlawfully taken from me under those charges. Not one of those charges is still standing. Yet the EFCC has refused to do the right thing. Our peaceful protest today is to raise a cry against this injustice in our land”.
While insisting that EFCC has no legal reason to refuse to return his properties to him, Tompolo recalled that three years ago he formally reported noticeable massive looting at the seized jetty to the Presidency “upon which a few junior naval ratings were court-martialled”.
Tompolo then called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the continued confiscation of his jetty and other properties by directing EFCC to abide by the rule of law.
Placard carrying workers from Tompolo’s embattled company who complained bitterly of being shut out for several months following EFCC’s seizure of the jetty, displayed their displeasure over the continued confiscation of the assets, despite the Court’s judgement that vindicated their benefactor.
Their placards had various inscriptions such as “Buhari, EFCC, Obey Court judgement”; “We need our site now, EFCC, Obey ,Court order”; “The absence of justice is the invitation to anarchy”; “EFCC, Evacuate our site now”; “Buhari, the case is over, open our yard”; “We are not lazy youths, we want to work. Open our yard now. Obey Court judgement”; etc.
