Biafra: Abaribe Urges Appeal Court To Relieve Him As Kanu’s Surety

A senator from Abia State, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has asked the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, to relieve him of his earlier position as a surety to the acclaimed leader of the indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) , Nnamdi Kanu.

Abaribe,  in the appeal described his continuous standing as surety for Kanu as illegal and urged the court to set aside the November 14, 2018, order of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

  The lower court had given him and two other surties two months within which to pay the N100 million bond each due to their inability to produce the Kanu, who fled the country in September 2017 following the attack on his Abia State residence by the Nigerian military.

  Justice Nyako, in her November 14, 2018 ruling, had 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 brought against him by the federal government.

But the senator, through his counsel, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume (SAN), filed an amended notice of appeal contesting the Federal High Court’s decisions.

  Relying on Sections 55, 165(3), 167(3) and 488 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) and other provisions of the constitution, Ume in the amended notice argued that a public officer such as a senator was legally exempted from standing surety for a suspect.

  He blamed the Federal High Court for making a senator 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 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 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 can see therefore that the involvement of Senator Abaribe in the whole bail and surety quagmire was invalid from the beginning”, Ume said.

  The two-month ultimatum given to Abaribe is bound to lapse on January 14, but before then, the Senator and the other two sureties, Emmanuel Shallom-Ben and Tochukwu Uchendu, had filed separate appeals against the November 14, 2018 order.

  Abaribe in his appeal canvassed that the Federal High Court, on its own, made “an order of interim forfeiture without considering or evaluating” all the applications filed before it by the sureties.

  He added that the trial court acted without jurisdiction when, on its own, it made an interlocutory order that in substance rendered the core issue in the substantive matter a nullity. 

  Meanwhile, the Federal High Court has fixed March 28 for continuation of the matter.