Akin Kuponiyi
Goodluck Jonathan, former President of Nigeria
Mr Azibaola Robert, a Niger-Delta activist who also is a cousin to Nigeria’s former president, Goodluck Jonathan, has dragged the Federal Government of Nigeria to court over his continued detention.
Robert, a legal practitioner, and environmental activist is a close confidant of Jonathan.
He was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after he honored an invitation at the Abuja office of the anti-graft agency on March 23, 2016.
In a suit filed before the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, through the law firm of Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, Robert is asking the court to stop the FG and indeed the EFCC from applying for any new remand warrant against him in any court in Nigeria, since a pattern has been established that such remand warrant is only a ploy to keep him in custody indefinitely.
He is asking the court to hold that sections 293 and 294 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, which the EFCC is relying on to secure remand orders from magistrate courts were designed to cater for criminal offences attracting capital punishment, such as murder, armed robbery, kidnapping or treasonable felony, for which the police would need time to await a legal advice from the office of the Attorney-General, and not cases relating to financial crimes, being handled by the EFCC, for which are mostly documentary.
He is also asking to hold that the attempt by the EFCC to force him to implicate the former President, Dr Jonathan, is contrary to section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, which has outlawed the practice of arresting a citizen as ransom for the alleged offense of another citizen.
Azibaola Robert
Robert in his claim alleged that he was commissioned by the federal …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
