The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed by the former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPM), Emmanuel Okoyomon against the June 6, 2016 judgment by the Court of Appeal, Abuja division.
The Court of Appeal had in its judgment affirmed the May 4, 2015 judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja granting the request by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) for permission to extradite Okoyomon to the United Kingdom (UK).
A five-member panel of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Mohammed Garba, held in a unanimous judgment on Friday, that the appeal, marked: SC/456/2016 was without merit.
In the lead judgment, prepared by Justice Emmanuel Agim, but read on Friday by Justice Mohammed Idris, the Supreme Court held that Okoyomon did not make out any case to require it to interfere with the concurrent findings of the two lower courts.
The apex court proceeded to dismiss the appeal, affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal, but refrained from awarding cost against the appellant.
According to the AGF, Okoyomon is to be extradited to face trial in the UK, where he has been accused of complicity in the bribery allegation involving officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the NSPM and Securency International Pty of Australia.
In the June 6, 2016 judgment, the Court of Appeal resolved three, out of the four questions determined, against Okoyomon.
In the lead judgment, Justice Moore Adumein held that, as against Okoyonmon’s contention, Nigeria has an obligation under the London Scheme for Extradition, within the Commonwealth, to extradite a person sought in respect of an extradition offence to another Commonwealth country.
Justice Adumein said: “This provision is substantially supported by the provisions of sections 1 and 2 of the Extradition Act 2004. The lower court was right to have acted the way it did so as to avoid a situation whereby Nigeria could breach its obligations to threshold Commonwealth country, the UK.
“The provisions of the London Scheme for Extradition within the Commonwealth have been substantially enacted into law in Nigeria.
“The learned trial judge, in my humble view, rightly held that the respondent (AGF) made out a case to justify why the extradition application should be granted, while the appellant failed, by his defence, to convince the court why the application should be refused.
“The resolution of issue number three in favour of the appellant would not affect the final outcome of this appeal.
“This is so because the appellant has not shown how the failure to hear him on the point raised suo motu (on his own) by the trial judge, on whether or not he is a British citizen, has occasioned any miscarriage of justice.
“The law is that to warrant an appeal court’s reversal of a lower court’s decision, the appellant must show that the failure to hear him on the point raised and resolved suo motu occasioned a miscarriage of justice.
“In this case, whether or not the appellant is a British citizen did not affect the merit of this application for an order for his extradition, which the trial court rightly found to be meritorious based on the facts supplied by the applicant (respondent in the appeal).
“Since the threshold issues in this appeal have been resolved against the appellant, this appeal ought to be dismissed. Accordingly, this appeal is hereby dismissed,” Adumein said.
