An Abuja High Court on Wednesday gave the EFCC a Jan. 23, 2012 deadline to arraign two more suspects named in the 180 million dollars Halliburton bribery scam.
Those affected by the court order, are a former Permanent Secretary, Alhaji Ibrahim Aliyu and Mohammed Bakari of the Urban Shelter Ltd.
Other companies involved in the bribery scam are the Intercellular Nigeria Ltd, Sherwood Petroleum Ltd and Tri-Star Investment Ltd.
Justice Abubakar Umar also ordered that hearing notices be issued to all the accused persons’ counsel to appear on Jan. 23.
Umar asked all counsel involved to adhere to the specific details on the order or “they may suffer certain penalties for not following the instructions listed in the documentation’’.
It would be recalled that in March Justice Umar granted the EFCC leave to arraign the accused persons.
Mr Godwin Obla, counsel to the EFCC, had in his application, urged the judge to grant EFCC leave to arraign the accused persons, who are facing a nine-count-charge bordering on corruption and bribery.
Obla had on April 14, complained that the second accused person (Bakari) was proving difficult to be served with court papers for his arraignment.
He said that the other accused person involved in the alleged bribery scam had been served and that all efforts made by EFCC to serve Bakari had failed.
“He is evading been served with the papers.’’