Just yesterday, the former governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva, was talking about how he felt vindicated that the court had struck out the corruption case filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Today, the commission filed fresh charges against him.
He should have expected it though. The EFCC was very displeased with the Justice Ahmed Mohammed court ruling that threw out the corruption charges against Sylva and the spokesman of the commission, Wilson Uwujaren, protested via a press statement.
Justice Mohammed had said that the case was an abuse of court process.
The new charges by the EFCC were filed on Friday before the Federal High Court, Abuja.
In the fresh 50 counts filed on Friday, Sylva is charged alongside Francis Okokuro, Gbenga Balogun, and Samuel Ogbuku. The men are accused of using three companies – Marlin Maritime Limited, Eat Catering Services Limited, and Haloween-Blue Construction and Logistics Limitd – to move about N19.2bn from Bayelsa State coffers between 2009 and 2012, under false pretences of using the withdrawn money to augment salaries of the state government workers.