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.
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