On Tuesday, the Federal Capital Territory High Court denied a bail plea submitted by Yahaya Bello, the former governor of Kogi State, citing the application’s premature filing.
While delivering the verdict, Justice Maryann Anenih stated that this motion was incompetent because it was submitted while the first defendant was neither in custody nor before the court.
“Consequently, the instant application having been filed prematurely is hereby refused,” she indicated.
The previous senator is standing trial, together with two others, in a N110bn cash washing charge brought against him by the Financial and Budgetary Wrongdoings Commission.
Reviewing the contentions sometime recently the court on the bail application, the judge had said, “Before the court could be a movement on take note, dated and recorded on 22nd November. The 1st Litigant looks for an arrangement of this respectable court conceding him to safeguard pending the hearing and assurance of the charge.
“That he got to be mindful of the moment charge through the open summons. That he could be a two-term senator of Kogi State. That on the off chance that discharged on safeguard, he would not meddle with the witnesses and not bounce bail.”
She said the Defendant’s Direct, JB Daudu, SAN, had told the court that he had submitted adequate realities to give the safeguard.
He encouraged the court to work out its tact judicially and reasonably to allow the safeguard.
In contradicting, the Prosecution Counsel, Kemi Pinheiro, SAN, had contended that the moment application was terribly bumbling, having been recorded sometime recently arraignment.
He said it have to be be recorded after arraignment, but the 1st Defendant’s Direct opposed this idea, saying there was no specialist “that says that an application can as it were be recorded when it is ready for hearing.”
Whereas conveying her administering, Equity Maryann Anenih said, “The moment application for safeguard appeared that it was recorded on November November. This appears that it was recorded a few days after the 1st litigant was taken into custody.”
Perusing from the ACJA segment, the judge said the arrangement given that an application for safeguard can be made when a defendant had been captured, confined, arraigned, or brought some time recently the court.
Bello had recorded an application for his safeguard on 22 November but was taken into care on 26 November and arraigned on 27 November.
