The Federal Government, on Wednesday, failed to kick-start hearing on the two-count forgery charge it preferred against the Senate Presiden...
The Federal Government, on Wednesday, failed to kick-start hearing on the two-count forgery charge it preferred against the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.
when the matter was called up for hearing on Wednesday, the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Aliyu Umar, SAN, failed to produce any of his witnesses in court.
Umar, a former Attorney General of Kano State who was engaged by the government to prosecute the defendants on its behalf, told the court that the AGF, Abubakar Malami, SAN, had yet to hand over the case-file to him, a situation he said made it impossible for him to commence the trial as scheduled.
Consequently, he applied for a short adjournment to enable him to put his house in order and file responses to motions pending before the court. The request for adjournment was vehemently opposed by counsel to all the defendants who urged the court to compel the prosecution to open its case against them.
Besides, the defendants, noted that FG was yet to respond to three different motions challenging the legal competence of the charge marked CR/219/16, and dated June 10.
After he had listened to all the parties, trial Justice Yusuf Halilu expressed his disappointment with action of the prosecution.
“I do not allow parties to stall trial before me. These motions have been there for the past 90 days, yet they were not attended to by the prosecution.
“However, for the interest of justice and circumstances the prosecution counsel found himself, I oblige to adjourn this matter”, Justice Halilu held.
He subsequently adjourned the case till October 7 for definite hearing.
