Nigeria, March 14 -- A state High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, has discharged and acquitted a lawyer of fraud.

The lawyer, Imo Akpan, was arrested in 2015 by some operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He was handcuffed and taken from Uyo to Lagos in a commercial flight.

The EFCC later, in 2015, arraigned Mr Akpan, in a well-publicised case, on a two-count charge of obtaining money under false pretence and stealing, which the judge, Archibong Archibong, said the anti-graft agency was unable to prove.

PREMIUM TIMES has just received a copy of the court judgement delivered on January 20, 2021.

Mr Akpan was accused of collecting N20 million in an alleged sale of a filling station in Uyo in 2012 and convertin...