Press statement on the the fictitious charge against Innoson Nigeria Ltd.

Yesterday, several online news platforms carried a story on a supposed authorisation by the Federal High Court in Lagos to the AGF to begin the immediate prosecution of Chairman/CEO of Innoson Group for forgery. Now Innoson Group has through its company spokesperson Cornel Osigwe released a statement to counter the said publication. Read after the cut...

Our attention has been drawn to a news report published by various online media that the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has authorised the Attorney-General of Federation (AGF) to commence the prosecution of a Lagos businessman, Innocent Chukwuma, his company, Innoson Nigeria Limited, and four others for alleged forgery. Ordinarily, we would not have dignified this news report with a response but in a nation where silence may be seen as an admission of guilt, we therefore come out to state the true position of things. Although there is a charge pending against Innoson Nigeria Ltd, the charge is a trumped up. To this end, the police have through its letter of 17th February 2016 discontinued the charge in order to further investigate the matter. Also, Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation through paragraph 10 of its opinion referenced DPPF 30/03/2016 contained in the policy file of the Ministry of Justice directed that the charge be discontinued and the file sent back to the police to further investigate the matter. The court never ordered or directed the Attorney General of the Federation to take over the case since and more importantly no court in Nigeria has such power over the AGF. Already Innoson has over N15billion judgment in its favour against Guaranty Trust Bank (who is sponsoring the charge) in suit no Fhc/AWK/CS/139/2012, suit no Fhc/L/CS/603/2006 and Appeal no CA/I/258/2011 and Appeal no CA/E/288/2014. The charge is to blackmail Innoson and to force it to forgo the judgments sums of over N15Billion.