The Senator representing Bauchi central senatorial district, Isah Misau, said yesterday that he was ready to meet the federal government in court to defend charges bordering on forgery and perjury levelled against him.
Last week, the federal government had filed a five-count criminal charge before an Abuja High Court against the Senator bordering on alleged injurious falsehood against the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Nigeria Police Force.
The prosecution had further sought for the permission of the court to summon Misau to appear before it.
But the Chief Judge of the court, Justice Ishaq Bello, who heard the application in his chamber, refused to grant the permission and consequently ordered the prosecution to follow the legal way of serving the court process on the defendant.
Misau, who spoke through his counsel, Mr. Godwin Obla (SAN), in a statement issued in Abuja said the reason he is being called to face criminal trial is because he called for the probe of the Office of the IGP in respect of allegations of corrupt practices.
He commended the court for turning down the “obvious unlawful application to issue warrant of arrest on him but directing instead the prosecuting authority to appropriately serve a copy of the charge on him.”
Obla wondered why the prosecuting authority would choose not to serve an accused person whose particulars of residential and work place addresses are well known, a copy of the charge sheet in a case already pending.
The statement reads in part: “The Distinguished Senator, in line with our counsel, visited the registry of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and magnanimously undertook to receive service of the copy of the charge, even though the prosecution ought to bear that burden, but was shocked to the marrow that no one copy was left in the file of the court for service on the accused, corroborating thereby our earlier assertion of a strategic step at another gestapo operation in the offing.
“Except for interests other than the ends of justice, underlying the pending charge against Senator Hamma Misau, we hereby call on the prosecution to play its prosecutorial cards face up, as we shall gladly love to meet them in court to articulate our robust defence against the obviously spurious allegations against the distinguished Senator.
“As if the palpable odium of intiating a vacuous criminal charge against a whistle-blower, no less a person than a distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was not bad enough, the prosecuting authority, obviously egged on by the Inspector General of Police, threw pretension to adherence to democratic tenets of the rule of law when it sought from the court, albeit most illegally, to obtain summons against Senator Misau, while deliberately withholding service of the copy of the charge on the Senator, an obvious stratagem conceived to frame up all manner of false allegations tailored to suit the obvious purpose of yet another gestapo strategy to use state powers to swoop on the Distinguished Senator and keep him out of circulation”.
Dasuki Asks Court To Adjourn Case indefinitely
Meanwhile, the former National Security Adviser under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), yesterday asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to suspend and adjourn indefinitely his trial on charges of illegal possession of firearms and money laundering.
Dasuki’s counsel, Mr. Ahmed Raji (SAN), told the court headed by Justice Ahmed Mohammed to adjourn the trial indefinitely pending the hearing and determination of the motion for stay of proceedings filed before the Court of Appeal, Abuja.
Raji contended that his client’s motion was not seeking an order of stay of proceedings which had been barred by section 306 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, but that the application was brought under section 305 of the ACJA which he argued allows the court to adjourn a trial after a constitutional issue arising from the trial had been referred to a higher court for determination.
Raji said, “In the cause of the proceedings, a very major constitutional issue arose on witness protection and fair trial under the constitution and the defendant here has referred the constitutional matter to the Court of Appeal.
“The notice of appeal, Exhibit C which is the vehicle through which the referral was made, particularly in ground 3, states that section 232(3)(b) of the ACJA has been submitted for the test against the provision of (4) of the 1999 Constitution.
On the basis of this referral the court should adjourn the matter”.
Dasuki had been in detention of the DSS for about two years despite being granted bail by three different courts.
leadership.