A Lagos High Court on Wednesday adjourned the arraignment of the first batch of oil subsidy fraud suspects till Thursday after one of the accused persons failed to appear in court.
Only three of the suspects showed up in court.
While adjourning the case till Thursday, the judge said all the accused persons must be in court for the arraignment.
The lawyer to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) requested the court to fix the arraignment for Thursday to enable the Attorney General of the Federation to personally appear in court.
The EFCC had on Tuesday unveiled the first group of 20 suspected fraudsters billed for arraignment over their involvement in the subsidy scam.
The suspects include Mahmud Tukur, the son of the national chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, Bamanga Tukur.
Meanwhile the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) said on Wednesday it was owed over N1.1 trillion in government fuel import subsidies, debts which would wipe out savings supposed to protect the country’s economy from oil price dips.
“As at the end of May 2012 NNPC had unpaid (subsidy) claims of N1.134 trillion naira,” Fidel Pepple, spokesman for the NNPC, told Reuters.
