COURT RESERVES RULING ON NO CASE SUBMISSION BY EX NIMASA BOSS.

Justice Rita-Ofili Ajumogobia of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, has reserved ruling for January 26, 2015, for an application filed by the former Director General of the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Raymond Temisan Omatseye, for a no case submission.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, through its counsel Godwin Obla SAN, on Tuesday December 2, 2014, told A Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos state and presided over by Justice Rita-Ofili Ajumogobia that the former Director General of the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Raymond Temisan Omatseye,  has been directly linked to the charge brought against him by the EFCC.“the accused person has been sufficiently and severally linked to the offences for which he is being prosecuted for, and this is not an issue to over flog because the accused person wrote it in his statement at the EFCC office and in his own hand writing that his threshold for goods is N2.5million and works N5million” Obla said.
But the defence counsel Sina Sofola SAN, argued that “the law under which the accused person was charged, did not state what the threshold was and there was no date as to when that document was enforced, besides, the Public Procurement Act did not state that this particular amount is the threshold”.
“the motion seeking to discharge the accused is on the grounds that he has no case to answer as the prosecution has not been able to establish what the legislation was when the contracts were awarded, and the motion moved in the terms of the application and affidavit of five paragraphs and written address in support of the no case submission. I therefore urge the court to grant the application” said Sofola.
Obla immediately prayed the court to discountenance the arguments of the defence counsel to dismiss the charge against the accused person, but further hinged his argument on the entire 49 paged affidavit that vehemently oppose the application for a no case submission, filed by the accused person/applicant.
According to Obla in his written response, “prosecution witness one, meticulously demonstrated to this court how the accused person committed the offences contained in each of the counts before this court, and prosecution witness three, also an expert in the field of procurement also used the exhibits before this court to show how these offences were committed by the accused. With profound respect it is late in the day for the accused person to raise an objection to the charge now, since he never raised same when the charge was read to him and upon arraignment before this court, pleaded not guilty to all the counts. This presupposes that he understood the charge that was read to him and was not misled”.
The former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA, Raymond Temisan Omatseye, is being prosecuted by the EFCC on charges bordering on contract variation, bid rigging and violation of the provisions of the Public Procurement Act by awarding contracts above his approval limit.