Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe has told
the Court of Appeal in Abuja that his standing surety for the leader of the
Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, is illegal.
Abaribe, in an amended seven
grounds notice of appeal filed by his lawyer, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume (SAN),
urged the appellate court to relieve him of the role of surety for Kanu.
In the document made available to
journalists in Abuja yesterday, Abaribe also asked the Appeal Court to set
aside the November 14, 2018 order of the Federal High Court in Abuja which gave
him and two others a two-month ultimatum to, each pay N100m bond for their
inability to produce the Biafran activist.
Recall that Justice Binta Nyako
of the Federal High Court in Abuja, had in her November 14, 2018 ruling, held
that Abaribe and the two other sureties owed the court the duty of producing
Kanu, whose absence since 2017 has halted his trial on charges of treasonable
felony.
But the senator had also filed a
brief of argument to challenge the Federal High Court’s decisions.
Relying on sections 55, 165(3),
167(3) and 488 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, and other
provisions of the constitution, Ume argued that a public officer such as a
senator was legally exempted from standing surety for a suspect.
The Senator’s lawyer blamed the
Federal High Court for making a senator to be part of the sureties Kanu must
present in April 2017.
Ume said, “The honourable trial
court failed and or refused to take judicial notice” of the relevant provisions
of the ACJA and the Nigerian constitution.
“Thus the honourable trial court
had not done the needful under the law, otherwise it would have found that by
law, the appellant (a senator) is legally exempted, ab initio from giving
security for the good conduct or behaviour of a suspect.
“It is trite law that where a
valid Act or law clearly states something, it is not within the powers of the
court to go contrary to it.
“We, therefore, can see that the
involvement of Senator Abaribe in the whole bail and surety quagmire was
invalid, ab initio.”
Abaribe and two others had stood
as sureties for Kanu before he was granted bail by the Federal High Court in
Abuja on April 25, 2017.
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Now they know what the law says. IT IS LAW NOW NOT BUHARI
ReplyDeleteIf the court did not allow it that time, they will say it is Buhari. His hatred for lbo land or people.
Until we have the habit not to be sentimental or political about any issues in Nigeria, things like this will never stop.
It is good that someone like him is paying the real price.