The Federal High Court, Monday, froze an operational account of the Bauchi State Government, sequel to allegations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, that it was dedicated to money laundering.
The frozen account is domiciled in First City Monument Bank, FCMB.
But delivering her ruling on Monday, the presiding judge, Justice Taiwo Taiwo, who broke her annual vacation, clamped the controversial account, barring further withdrawals from it.
The order will subsist till the EFCC concludes its investigations currently being conducted by the Gombe Zonal office of the anti-graft agency.
The exercise, the EFCC told the court, was being undertaken by a crack team investigators headed by Mr. Mohammed Abdullahi, a chief investigator.
The commission told the court that it, between May 24 and May 28, 2019, received an intelligence that the past administration of Alhaji Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar initiated a process of over-drawing with intent to launder about N20billion that accrued to the state from the federation account.
Lawyer to the anti-graft agency, Mr Abubakar Aliyu, said a current balance of N11.5billion, was directly paid into the Bauchi State account domiciled in FCMB account from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, by the federal government.
And rather than press the red button and block the criminal transfers, the new administration of Mallam Bala Mohammed continued the illegal process, thus compounding the economic adversity of Bauchi State.
