It’s illegal for me to remain Nnamdi Kanu’s surety — Sen. Abaribe

Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe has told the Court of Appeal in Abuja
that his standing surety for the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, is illegal.

He therefore urged the court to relieve him of the suretyship
for Kanu.

Abaribe also asked the court to set aside the November 14, 2018
order of the Federal High Court in Abuja which gave him and two
others a two-month ultimatum to, each pay N100m bond for their
inability to produce the Biafran activist.

Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja, had in
her November 14, 2018 ruling, 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.

But the senator, through his lawyer, Mr Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume
(SAN), had on January 3, 2018, filed an amended seven grounds
notice of appeal and a brief of argument to challenge the Federal
High Court’s decisions.

Relying on sections 55, 165(3), 167(3) and 488 of the
Administration of Criminal Justice Act, and other provisions of the
constitution, Ume 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 to be 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 honourable 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, ab initio 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 therefore can see that the involvement of Senator Abaribe in
the whole bail and surety quagmire was invalid, ab initio.”

Kanu slipped out of Nigeria after soldiers deployed under the
Operation ‘Python Dance II’ in the South-East to quell agitation
for a Biafra republic, invaded his home in Afara-Ukwu, Umuahia,
Abia in September 2017.

Abaribe and two others had stood as sureties for Kanu before he
was granted bail by the Federal High Court in Abuja on April 25,
2017.

They are now grappling with the burden to produce him to enable
his trial to continue.

The three sureties’ inability to produce Kanu, made the judge,
Justice Binta Nyako, to order them on November 14, 2018, to each
pay into the court’s account the N100m bond within two months.

The two-month ultimatum lapses on January 14.

But before the ultimatum expires, Abaribe and the two other
sureties – Emmanuel Shallom-Ben and Tochukwu Uchendu – had filed
separate appeals against the November 14, 2018 order.

Abaribe canvassed among other grounds of appeal 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 it
suo moto (on its own) made an interlocutory order that in substance
rendered nugatory the core issue in the substantive matter.

Meanwhile the Federal High Court has fixed March 28 for the
sureties to return for hearing.