Waripamo-Owei Dudafa, Former Special Adviser to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on Domestic Affairs was on Tuesday denied permission to travel abroad for medical treatment.
Vacation judge of the Federal High Court, Lagos, Justice Chuka Obiozor refused the application.
Dudafa had urged the court to order the release of his passport in order to enable him travel abroad to treat a spinal cord injury.
He had alleged that he sustained the injury while in the detention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He, however, said he needed to urgently travel abroad for a medical appointment and urged the court to release the passport to him.
His lawyer, Kolawole Salami, said the medical appointment was earlier scheduled for July 18 and 19, 2017 but had to be rescheduled for July 28, 2017 as Dudafa had yet to get access to his passport.
The judge, however, refused to entertain the application, saying he was not convinced that there was truly any emergency in Dudafa’s case.
He said Dudafa would have ensured his application was heard in May when it was filed, if it was truly an emergency.
Justice Obiozor rejected explanation by Dudafa’s lawyer, Salami, that hearing of the application before Justice Idris was stalled due to the failure of the EFCC to respond to the application despite being served.
“Let him reschedule to October; he can reschedule to October,” Justice Obiozor said while declining plea to hear the application.
The EFCC is prosecuting Dudafa before Justice Idris on 23 counts bordering on fraud and money laundering.
He allegedly used different companies to fraudulently launder various sums of money running into N5.1bn.