As Stella Oduah Returns to Court

Notes for File

For a former Minister of Aviation, Senator Stella Oduah, the news that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, has given the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) approval to prosecute her for an alleged N5 billion fraud  must have come as a rude shock.

Oduah, the senator representing Anambra North in the National Assembly, is to stand trial alongside eight others on a 25-count charge bordering on alleged conspiracy, money laundering, and maintaining anonymous bank accounts.

She was to be arraigned several times in 2021, but her trial was stalled for several reasons. Many believed she reached a deal with the agents of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to be freed from prosecution when she curiously defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the party in August 2021.

Though she claimed that she wanted to be part of the process of changing the political narrative in the South-east, many had suspected that her defection was merely in tune with the controversial statement by a former Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole that the sins of the members of the PDP would be forgiven once they joined the ruling party.

In one of the court’s sitting on November 22, 2021, Oguh Onoja, a defence counsel, raised an objection against the arraignment of Oduah and other defendants, stating that he had written a petition to the AGF on the grounds that the defendants were “being persecuted”. The case file was later transmitted to the office of the AGF for a review of the matter. Consequently, the case was adjourned indefinitely to await a response from the AGF. The delay by the AGF to give the EFCC a go-ahead fuelled the speculations that she was asked to defect so that the case would die a natural death.

But exactly eight months after she joined the APC,  Oduah dramatically returned to the PDP in April this year, thereby failing to learn from the likes of former governor of Bayelsa State, and Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Timipre Sylva; former Governor of Akwa Ibom State and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio; former governor of Gombe State, Danjuma Goje and Governor Hope Uzodimma, who were given special treatment after their defection to the ruling party.

Many believe that by returning to the PDP, she has failed to fulfill her own part of the bargain.

It is not surprising that she is back to the dock to answer questions on the alleged sins she thought she had ran away from.