Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe representing Abia South has accused the Chief of Army, Tukur Buratai of making difficult his role as a surety for the bail granted the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu by a Federal High Court in Abuja.
Abaribe stated this in a fresh motion he filed before the court where he and Kanu’s two other sureties had been ordered to explain the IPOB leader’s whereabouts. The senator had earlier filed a motion seeking to be discharged as Kanu’s surety, but the trial judge, Binta Nyako, directed during the previous proceedings of October 17, 2017, that the senator could not withdraw his surety-ship until Kanu was produced before the court.
Kanu, who is being prosecuted alongside others on charges bordering on a treasonable felony, was Monday absent from court for the second time after the alleged invasion of his home in Abia State by soldiers on September 14, since when he had been declared missing by his family.
Abaribe stated in a fresh motion filed through his lawyer, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume SAN, on November 17, 2017 that he should not be held responsible for unavailability of Kanu to attend court for his trial, alleging that Kanu’s unknown whereabouts were caused by the “whimsical, capricious, subversive and extrajudicial self-help” embarked upon by the Chief of Army Staff.
The senator maintained that Buratai was aware of the pending charges against Kanu when he allegedly deployed soldiers to “forcefully and violently” invade the IPOB leader’s home in Afaraukwu Ibeku- Umuahia, in Abia State on September 14, 2017.
He noted that the conducts of the COAS on the deployment of the soldiers were with “most probable effect” of preventing him (Kanu) from attending court to continue his trial. He said he opted to be Kanu’s surety out of “patriotic consideration of assisting the judicial process to defuse the tension already generated in the polity”.
Ume, Abaribe’s counsel argued in the motion that the Chief of Army Staff’s “extra-judicial self-help conduct obviously frustrated the proceedings and course of administration of justice (in the bail and bail bond granted and executed in Charge No.FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015”.
The lawyer maintained that the “actions have brought the honorable court to some ridicule and its powers appear nugatory as well as placing in a fixed up position”.
The senator, therefore sought in the fresh motion, an order directing the Chief of Army Staff to explain to the court why the Attorney-General of the Federation should not “be compelled to initiate contempt charges/proceedings against him for his extra-judicial self-help conducts”. With Punchng.com
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