Court Remands Legal Head Over Alleged Defamation

Ridwan Abdulwahab, the Northern Region Head of Legal Department of ECO Bank, a commercialized fiscal institution, has been remanded astatine Kuje situation successful Abuja pursuing his arraignment connected perjury and defamation of character.

He was remanded connected Thursday by Chief Magistrate Musa Sadiq, wherever helium was enactment connected proceedings by the Inspector General of Police IGP for giving mendacious accusation connected oath and defaming the quality of Justice Charles Agbaza of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.

The banker, a lawyer by training, was accused by the IGP of deposing to an affidavit successful which helium gave mendacious accusation successful a bid to artifact his slope from releasing the N228.4M judgement indebtedness awarded against the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the judgement creditor.

In his deposition, the accused alleged that the writ of execution utilized to instrumentality Garnishee Absolute against Eco Bank and bid the merchandise of the wealth to the proprietor was an unsigned papers by Justice Charles Agbaza.

The ECOWAS was ordered by the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court successful Abuja to wage the N228M to a judgement creditor, Vision Kam Jay, an indigenous institution for a occupation executed for the Regional body.

In the First Information Report, FIR, the ECO Bank, successful compliance with the tribunal orders, made the outgo into the judgement creditor’s relationship successful 2020. Still, the slope instantly placed a “Post No Debt” (PND) connected the aforesaid account, making it intolerable for the money proprietor to entree it.

Following a Direct Complaint lodged against the banker by the judgement creditor for giving mendacious evidence, Chief Magistrate Farida Ibrahim referred the substance to the Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG, Zone 7, for probe and report.

In its report, the AIG Zone 7 recovered that, contrary to the accused person’s claim, Justice Charles Agbaza duly signed the writ of execution for garnishee implicit earlier the tribunal bid was enforced.

The writ utilized to wage the judgement indebtedness against ECOWAS was recovered to person been signed by Justice Charles Agbaza of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory successful compliance with tribunal orders.

The accused idiosyncratic was said to person made the mendacious deposition successful sympathy with ECOWAS and arsenic a ploy to artifact the judgement creditor from accessing the fund.

He was subsequently charged with perjury contrary to sections 158 and 392 of the Penal Code, laws of Northern Nigeria.

However, erstwhile the complaint was read, the accused pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer, Mr Kalat Jatu, made concerted efforts to abort the arraignment due to the fact that the FIR was defective.  Magistrate Musa Sadiq turned down these efforts, ruling that conception 396 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA did not licence granting specified a request.

Although the defence lawyer requested that bail beryllium granted to the accused person, the Prosecutor, Bale Nimnan, vehemently opposed it, claiming that it took a batch of effort earlier the accused idiosyncratic honoured the constabulary invitation.

In his little ruling, Magistrate Musa Sadiq rejected the oral bail exertion and ordered the accused to enactment it successful penning and service the prosecution arsenic required by law.

The Judge subsequently ordered that the accused idiosyncratic beryllium remanded astatine Kuje situation pending the court’s determination connected the bail application.