A FCT high court in Abuja has dismissed an application by the Department of State Services (DSS) to detain suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele for another 14 days.
The DSS claimed in a covert application filed on Wednesday that it had discovered new evidence against the suspended CBN governor.
Despite the fact that the court is on vacation, the matter was heard by Judge Hamza Muazu on Thursday.
Muazu asked DSS counsel Victor Ejelonu to address the issue of jurisdiction. He noted that Sections 293 and 296 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act grant magistrate courts exclusive rights to grant detention orders.
The application was then withdrawn by Ejelonu.
As a result, the judge dismissed the case.
Emefiele has been detained by the DSS since his arrest in June.
On Tuesday, he was arraigned in a federal high court in Ikoyi on a two-count charge of “illegal possession” of firearms and was granted N20 million bail.
Despite the fact that the federal high court judge, Nicholas Oweibo, had ordered that Emefiele be kept in the custody of the Nigeria Correctional Service pending the fulfilment of his bail conditions, officials from the DSS forcibly re-arrested the suspended CBN governor.
