The Federal High Court in Abuja has declared that magistrate\u2019s courts lacked the power to issue an order freezing bank accounts.<\/p>\n
The court also ordered banks to desist from acting on \u201cbankers order\u201d served on them, particularly by the police, to freeze or place a post-no-debit order accounts on personal accounts.<\/p>\n
Justice Inyang Ekwo made the declaration in a judgment in a suit marked FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/1635\/2019 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The suit was instituted by five children of the late Chief E. A. Esiso against one of their siblings, Yoma Esiso, four banks which had frozen their bank accounts, the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioner of Police in charge of the IGP Monitoring Unit.<\/p>\n
The five siblings who were the plaintiffs who instituted the suit are Mrs Eunice Oddiri, Beauty Ogbodu, Chief Sunny Esiso, Edirin Esiso, and Mrs Emuobosa Consin.<\/p>\n
They stated in their suit that in September 2019 one of the landed assets of their late father in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, was sold and the proceeds were shared among the deceased\u2019s children, including Yoma.<\/p>\n
Yoma was said to have petitioned the police after which his five siblings were arrested and detained.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs were later released on bail but realised that their accounts had been frozen by their various banks which claimed to have received letters authorising them to so do from the office of the Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner of the Police in charge of the IGP Monitoring Unit.<\/p>\n
The banks said the letters from the IGP office were accompanied with a document called a Bankers Order from a magistrates\u2019 court, ordering the freezing\/post no debit on the accounts.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs on December 24, 2019 sued their banks \u2013 Zenith Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Guarantee Trust Bank and First Bank Place \u2013 along with the IGP, the IGP Monitoring Unit, and Yoma.<\/p>\n
They contend among others in their suit that that the order to freeze\/post-no-debit obtained from the magistrate\u2019s court and placed on their accounts on the strength of a non-existent law was illegal null and void.<\/p>\n
Only GTB filed processes in response to the suit, while the rest of the defendants did not.<\/p>\n
But in his judgment, Justice Ekwo ruled that GTB failed to effectively controvert the case of the plaintiffs as he held that there was no existing Nigerian law or relevant foreign law empowering magistrates to make such an order for freezing of persons\u2019 accounts.<\/p>\n
He therefore declared that \u201cthe Bankers Order\/Order freezing and\/or enabling the post-no-debit\u201d on the listed accounts of the plaintiffs \u201ccannot be validly issued pursuant to a non-existent\/repealed Bankers Order Act 1847 and any other irrelevant foreign law\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge also ruled that \u201ca Magistrate lacks the powers to make Bankers orders and\/or order freezing or enabling a post no debit on bank accounts pursuant to non-existent\/repealed section 7 of the Banker\u2018s Order Act 1847.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge therefore ordered the four banks \u201cto unfreeze the accounts of the plaintiffs and desist from further giving effect to the non-existent Bankers order served on the prompting of the 5th and 6th defendants (IGP and the IGP Monitoring Unit).\u201d<\/p>\n
Punch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal High Court in Abuja has declared that magistrate\u2019s courts lacked the power to issue an order freezing bank accounts. The court also ordered banks to desist from acting on \u201cbankers order\u201d served on them, particularly by the police, to freeze or place a post-no-debit order accounts on personal accounts. Justice Inyang Ekwo made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t