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  Africcon Report: A’Court dismisses artisan’s claim to $15m Ibori bribe
  Africcon New Media – News
  
  The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, on Wednesday struck out an application in which a refrigerator repairer, Mr. Olalekan Bayode, asked it to stay proceedings in the legal battle over the controversial $15m said to have been received as bribe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission from an undisclosed agent of former Delta State Governor James Ibori in 2007.
  
  The Federal Government and the Delta State Government are currently fighting over the right to claim the $15m before an Abuja Federal High Court.
  
  The Abuja FHC had in a ruling on November 23, 2012, dismissed Bayode’s claims to the controversial sum, which had been kept in the strong room of the Central Bank of Nigeria as unclaimed property since August 2007.
  
  The refrigerator repairer had, in the dismissed application, asked the court not to give the money to the federal and Delta State governments, but instead, give it to him to set up a Trust Fund that would be utilised for the wellbeing of Nigerians.
  
  Dissatisfied with the FHC ruling, Bayode, through his counsel, Mr. Femi Aina, a United Kingdom-based lawyer, appealed  the judgment at the Court of Appeal.
  
  Bayode, from Alagbado, Lagos, wants the appellate court to set aside the dismissal of his claim to the cash by the FHC.
  
  He also filed an application, asking the court to order the trial court to stay proceedings in the substantive suit, pending the determination of the appeal.
  
  However, when the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, a three-man panel of justices of the appellate court, led by Justice Amiru Sanusi, struck out Bayode’s application for stay of proceedings on the grounds that it did not comply with Order 7, Rule 1 of the Court of Appeal.
  
  Bayode’s lawyer, Aina, had initially informed the court that “what we are seeking with the motion is for a stay of proceedings at the trial court pending the hearing of the appeal.”
  
  Justice Sanusi immediately drew the counsel’s attention to the fact that the grounds upon which the application was brought before the Court of Appeal was not stated in the motion.
  
  “What are the grounds upon which the motion was brought here? Order 7 Rule 1 states that you must state the grounds upon which you brought the motion and that is conspicuously absent,” he said.
  
  Following Aina’s attempt to argue that the details were included in the application, Justice Sanusi noted that grounds for bringing an application was different from grounds of appeal.
  
  Aina thereafter sought leave to withdraw the application, after which, in a short ruling afterwards, it was struck out.