Some female members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) turned up in large number at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday to witness the ongoing trial of Professor Cyril Ndifon, the suspended Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Calabar (UNICAL).
The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) is prosecuting Ndifon and Sunny Anyanwu on allegations of sexual harassment, obstruction of investigation and attempt to perverse the cause of justice.
Ndifon was earlier arraigned alone but the ICPC later amended the charge to include Anyanwu, who is one of the lawyers to the Law professor.
In the amended charge filed on 22 January by the ICPC claimed that Anyanwu called one of the prosecution witnesses on her mobile telephone and threatened the witness.
On Wednesday, Linda Bala led the women from the NBA, while Amina Agbaje, the Country Vice President of FIDA, led others.
The women, some of whom bore placards, said they were in court to witness how the trial was progressing.
When the case was called, lawyer to the defendants, Wilberforce Otuagona (SAN) urged the court to hear his clients’ bail applications first before proceedings to conduct trial, a request Justice James Omotosho rejected.
Justice Omotosho said he prefer to first conduct trial before attending to the defendants’ bail applications.
The judge said his decision was to ensure the protection for the prosecution witness, who Anyanwu was alleged to have been called on phone.
The judge, who said the interest of all parties must be protected, added that justice would be done to the parties.
Both Otuagona and the prosecuting lawyer Osuobeni Akponimisingha agreed with the court that the witness’ testimony be taken first before the hearing of the bail applications.
The judge then stood down the case to enable him attended to other cases in a bid to decongest the courtroom that was filled with lawyers and litigants in other cases.
At the resumption of proceedings around 12 noon, the prosecutor called a witness, Lucy Ogechi, an investigator with the ICPC.
She said a forensic analysis carried out on Ndifon’s phone revealed that there were several nude pictures from many contacts.
Led in evidence by Akponimisingha, Ogechi also said a diploma student (name withheld in view of the court’s order to protect the victim) of the university sent pornographic photographs of herself to Ndifon through his mobile telephone at different times.
The witness added: “We saw so many nude photos of so many contacts including the contact of TKJ. TJk was of particular interest to the investigation.
“Because the TJk case is a case we observed that nude pictures were requested by the first defendant (Ndifon) as currency for admission to TKJ for the diploma class transiting to the LLB class. We sought to confront the first defendant with our findings and refused to give his statement.
“We left him and decided to go on a fact-finding mission to Calabar where we interacted with a student with the aid of a lecturer who identified him for the team.”
The witness said the second defendant, a lawyer called the victim’s witness not to honour the ICPC’s invitation.
Ogechi said, “The victim witness told us that she received a strange call from a lawyer and friend of the first defendant who told her not to honour the invitation of the ICPC. We confronted him and he denied it.
“He also made a statement denying he called the victim witness. A forensic report on the call and other information from the network provider showed the contrary. He actually called the victim witness.
“Being a suspect in the matter we retrieve his phone from him. He signed a consent form for the retrieval of his phone.
“The forensic unit and response from the service provider revealed that the second defendant’s call to our witness known as TKJ was for 679 seconds. It also revealed that the TKJ number was forwarded by the first defendant to the second defendant.“
The witness further said that while the phones of the first and second defendants were with the commission, the suspended dean approached his service providers for a SIM swap, claiming his phone was missing.
Ogechi claimed that the first defendant did that to temper with the commission’s investigation.
She said, “While their phones were in the custody of the commission, the first defendant with a view to meddle with investigation approached his service providers for the retrieval of his number, claiming that it was lost when the phone was in the custody of the ICPC.“
Ogechi equally told the court that while the allegations of sexual harassment had been concluded, that of financial misappropriation was ongoing.
She said, “My lord, we have an investigation ongoing against him on the financial impropriety allegation while we have concluded that on sexual harassment.”
The prosecution also tendered documents used during the course of her investigation, which were admitted in evidence.
The documents included forensic analysis report, letter MTN, petition, statement of the second defendant, four statements of the first defendants, a letter from Airtel, and certificate of identification.
Under cross examination, the witnesses said not being a forensic analyst, he did not carry out the analysis by himself.
When asked by OtuagonaI’d he knew that Ndifon and the victim were in a relationship, the witness said “The only relationship I observed was that of a student and lecturer.”
The trial continues.
Alleged Sexual Harassment: Female Lawyers Besiege Court In Support Of UNICAL Prof’s Trial
