Court threatens to grant Kogi varsity lecturer, others bail

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja yesterday
threatened to grant bail to three suspected
members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect due to
lack of diligent prosecution by the federal
government.
The trial judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole handed
down the warning yesterday when the Chief State
Prosecution Counsel, Mrs. Jones Nebo filed an
application for an adjournment to enable her
apply for a modification of the partial secret trial
of the suspects as well as respond to the
counter affidavit filed by the accused persons'
counsels.
At the resumed hearing yesterday, counsel to the
1st accused person, Mr. Hassan Liman (SAN)
drew the court's attention to the deliberate
attempts being made by the prosecution counsel
to frustrate accelerated hearing of the trial.
He said: "A further application for adjournment
today will further delay the accelerated hearing. It
is obvious that the prosecution is not interested
in pushing this case forward".
Mr. Liman urged the court to bend backwards
and review its earlier order of March 7, 2014,
which the court refused the accused persons
bail, and admit the 1st accused person to bail on
the condition that the accused persons would
present themselves in court for trial.
"We urged the court to refuse the prosecution's
application for adjournment and review the bail
application of the accused persons pending when
the prosecution is ready to continue with the
matter.
Responding to the application, counsels to the
2nd and 3rd accused persons, Chief James
Ocholi (SAN) and Abdul Mohammed respectively
adopted all the submissions made by Mr. Liman
(SAN).
Chief Ocholi said: "I urge the court to hold that
the excuse by the prosecution is most
untenable. I want to adopt in totality the
submissions made by the 1st accused person's
counsel".
Jones-Nebo disabused the impression made by
the accused persons' counsels on lack of diligent
handling of the matter.
Ruling on the various arguments, Justice
Kolawole said acceding to the defense counsels'
request would be unjudicial owing to the reason
advanced by the prosecution.
He however ordered Mrs. Jones Nebo to file all
the necessary processes within seven days,
failure which would attract severe action from the
court.
The three accused persons; Dr. Mohammed
Yunus, Musa Umar and Salami Abdullahi, were
arraigned on an eight count charge of terrorism.
The matter was adjourned to May 14 for
argument on the motion on notice, while June 9,
10, 24,25 and 26 are for accelerated hearing and
trial to commence at 11:30 am daily.
Justice Kolawole remanded the accused persons
in prison custody and to be produced in court at
the adjourned date.

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