Following the dismissal or withdrawal of other claims to the cash, hearing in the contest between the Federal Government and Delta State was scheduled for Tuesday, but the state government asked for an adjournment to enable it to respond to a further counter-affidavit filed by the Federal Government.
When the court, presided by Justice Gabriel Kolawole, resumed to hear the matter, counsel for the EFCC, which is claiming the cash on behalf of the Federal Government, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, said he filed the fresh counter-affidavit on Monday.
Jacobs said the process was also served on Delta State on the same Monday.
Delta State counsel, the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Chief Charles Ajuyah, SAN, thereafter moved an oral application, asking for time to respond to the counter-affidavit.
The application was not opposed by other parties in the matter and Kolawole thereafter adjourned the hearing to January 10, 2013.
The Abuja FHC had on July 24, 2012, granted an interim order forfeiting the $15m to the Federal Government.
The money had been kept in the strong room of the Central Bank of Nigeria as an unclaimed property since August 2007.
In seeking to claim the cash, the Federal Government had claimed that the said sum, “if left untouched and unspent in the state it was kept in the strong room since April 2007, may eventually be destroyed, defaced, mutilated and become useless.”
As part of the interim order, Kolawole ordered anyone interested in the property to appear before the court to show cause within 14 days why the final order of forfeiture should not be made in favour of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
As a result, the Delta State Government applied to claim the $15m, saying it belonged to the state.