February 12, 2009
A federal high court judge, Justice Stephen Ada in Jos presiding over the trial of Henry Okah, the detained leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has handed off the case citing the need to avoid “bias” in the trial.The judge was indirectly acceding to the application by the lawyer to Okah, human rights attorney Femi Falana who earlier requested to judge to hand off the case in the spirit of the recent ruling by the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, which quashed the corruption trial of James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State before a Federal High court in Kaduna.
The Court of Appeal panel also in Kaduna had ruled that since there were no elements of crimes committed by James Ibori in Kaduna, the Federal High court located in Kaduna did not have jurisdiction to try Ibori and thus asked the chief judge of the federal High court to re-assign Ibori’s case to the Benin division. Mr. Falana had applied to the chief judge of the Federal High court to request the judge in Okah’s case to return his file for proper re-assignment to the place where Okah allegedly committed the numerous crimes listed against him by the Nigerian government, preferably Yenegoa division of to Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region.
In making his ruling, Justice Ada said in the Ibori’s case, the court of appeal said Ibori did not commit any of the offences committed in Kaduna and that Okah too did not commit any of the 62 –counts brought against him in the Jos division. He said the position of the Court of Appeal remains the prevailing law since the federal government did not appeal the ruling.
He further stated that the perception of the public will ridicule the integrity of the court since the Attorney General of the Federation; Michael Aondoakaa was already accused of manipulating the jurisdiction of the court in earlier pleadings by Okah lawyers.
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