A Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, Abuja, yesterday, remanded the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, in Kuje prison.
Trial judge, Justice Maryann Anenih, issued the remand order after she struck out an application the former governor filed to be released on bail, pending the determination of the charge the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, preferred against him and two others.
However, the court granted bail to two officials of the Kogi State government, Oricha and Abdulsalami Hudu, who were cited as 2nd and 3rd defendants in the matter.
Justice Anenih gave the duo bail in the sum of N300 million with two sureties in like sum.
The court held that the sureties must be owners of landed property situated within the Maitama District of the FCT not valued below the bail sum.
Asides directing the sureties to deposit the original title document of the property with the Deputy Registrar of the court, they were also ordered to depose to an affidavit of means and surrender their international passports.
The court also ordered the seizure of international passports of the defendants, stressing that they must not travel out of the country without permission.
It held that the two defendants should remain in prison custody until they perfect all the bail conditions.
Meantime, Justice Anenih had before she adjourned the case till January 29, adduced reason she could not accede to ex-governor Bello’s plea to be released from detention.
The court, in its ruling, described as premature and incompetent, Bello’s bail application. The court noted that Bello filed the bail application on November 22, about three days before he surrendered himself to the anti-graft agency.
Justice Anenih, who maintained that the aim of a bail application was to challenge the detention of a defendant, wondered why the former governor filed his motion at a time he was not in custody.
Citing the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, 2015, the trial judge held that the law was clear to the effect that an application for bail could be made when a defendant had been arrested, detained, arraigned or brought before the court.
She held that the implication of Bello’s action was that he attempted to invoke the jurisdiction of the court too early.
“Consequently, the instant application, having been filed prematurely, is hereby refused,” Justice Anenih held.
Bello, is facing trial over his alleged complicity in a N110 billion fraud.
All the defendants had on November 27, pleaded not guilty to the charge, even as the court remanded them in custody of the EFCC which specifically opposed the release of the ex-governor on bail.
|VANGUARD|
