Frozen Bank Accounts: Challenge CBN’s Action In Court – Lagos Attorney General Tells #EndSARS Protesters
Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), has advised #EndSARS frontliners whose bank accounts were frozen by Central Bank of Nigeria to challenge the action in a competent court of law.
Speaking during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, Onigbanjo said the Lagos state government has no hand in the act, stressing that only the Federal Government has answers on why the bank accounts were frozen.
It would be recalled that CBN obtained a court order for the move last Friday in pursuant to a motion ex parte filed by the apex bank on October 20, 2020 before Federal High Court in Abuja.
The court order directed the affected banks to freeze all transactions on the accounts for a period of 180 days pending the outcome of an investigation currently being conducted by the CBN.
Read Also: Court Grants CBN’s Request To Freeze 20 Bank Accounts Linked To #EndSARS Protests (Photos)
Justice Onigbanjo also appealed to Oluwarinu Oduala and Temitope Majekodunmi, the two youth representatives in the state’s Panel of Judicial Inquiry probing the alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters at Lekki toll gate to return to the panel so as to enable victims of police brutality and the Lekki shooting get justice.
The two representatives boycotted the panel hearing on Saturday following the news about CBN getting a court order to freeze 20 bank accounts linked to #EndSARS protests including one of the representatives.
The AG stressed;
The representatives of the youths on the panel who were affected by the CBN decision to freeze these accounts should bear two things in mind;
One is that by the panel not forming quorum means that all the victims of SARS abuses in Lagos which they have been clamouring for will not get the compensation which they seek and which the state government thinks they deserve.
All those affected cannot get their compensation for no fault of theirs because the panel members have some legal issues with the CBN.
Justice Onigbanjo expressed;
This problem is not the state’s making; the state has no control over the CBN. The state is interested in ensuring that people who suffered abuses in Lagos State ventilate and get the compensation which the panel will award to them.
Also, very crucial and critical, there have been so many allegations about what happened at the Lekki toll gate on the 20th of October this year. Again, that very crucial investigation will not be able to go on because of this quorum issue.
I would be urging the affected panel member and the other youth representative to resume their seats at the panel.
He added;
The CBN got a court order against their accounts and I believe that decision can be challenged on its own. They can go to court and challenge the decision of the CBN and at the same time, let the panel continue the work which impacts on the lives of so many people in Lagos State and which also touches on what happened at the Lekki toll gate.
