Alex Enumah in Abuja

Justice Inyang Eden Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has dismissed the federal government’s application for the extradition of the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCP Abba Kyari, to the United States of America over fraud allegations.

Justice Ekwo, in a judgment delivered on Monday, dismissed the request for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

Kyari is the subject of an indictment in case number 2:21-cr-00203 (also referred to as 2:21-mj-00760 and 2:21-cr-00203-rgk), filed April 29, 2021, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

He was said to have been indicted in an international wire fraud worth over $1.1 billion traced to another Nigerian, Abass Ramon, aka Hussppupi.

Following his indictment, the foreign government had last year wrote the authorities in Nigeria, seeking the arrest and subsequent extradition of the once ‘supercop’ of the Nigeria Police Force to the United States to give his own side of the story.

In line with the US request, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN), had early this year filed for the extradition of Kyari to the US to face charges involving him and five others including two Nigerians based in the United States.

Delivering judgment in the charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/249/2022, Justice Ekwo however held that the request was not proper since the federal government is already prosecuting Kyari in relation to the allegations against him in America.

Details later…