The Supreme Court has quashed two appeals lodged by the Attorney General of Rivers State and the Speaker of the state’s Assembly, which sought to overturn the leave granted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to contest an order prohibiting the investigation of Peter Odili’s tenure as governor of the state.
On Monday, March 10, 2025, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court, led by Justice John Okoro, delivered a ruling upholding the leave granted by the Court of Appeal to the EFCC, permitting the agency to contest a long-standing perpetual injunction that prohibited it from investigating Odili’s administrtenure
Odili, who served as Governor of Rivers State from 1999 to 2007, obtained the contentious injunction from the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt in 2007, preventing the EFCC from investigating, arresting, or prosecuting him, as well as scrutinizing the state’s finances during his tenure.
Since 2008, the EFCC has sought to overturn the injunction; however, the legal blockade has protected Odili from its investigations for nearly two decades.
In 2018, the Court of Appeal granted the EFCC’s request to challenge the Federal High Court’s ruling.
Nonetheless, the Rivers State Attorney General and the Speaker of the House of Assembly attempted to nullify the appellate court’s decision by filing separate appeals at the Supreme Court.
As stated in a statement released by the EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, on Tuesday, Justice Okoro raised concerns about the nature of the appeals during the proceedings at the Supreme Court on Monday, describing them as interlocutory and not the kind of cases the apex court hears at this stage.
“The litigants’ lawyer, S. A. Somiari, SAN, argued that the appeal challenged the leave granted by the Court of Appeal for the EFCC to appeal the 2007 injunction. Justice Okoro, however, interjected, stating,
‘This is not the type of appeal we hear here,’ and advised the parties to return to the Court of Appeal to have the substantive appeal heard before approaching the Supreme Court”.
Acknowledging the court’s standpoint, Somiari applied to discontinue the appeal.
The EFCC’s legal team, consisting of Abubakar Mahmud, SAN, Sylvanus Tahir, SAN, and B. O. Obialo, offered no opposition to the withdrawal.
The Supreme Court then dismissed the appeal
“The appeal is dismissed, having been withdrawn without any objection,” Justice Okoro ruled.
He further noted that an appeal filed by the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly on similar grounds was dismissed.
