March 25, 2009
FORMER Governor of Jigawa state, now a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Senator Saminu Turaki this morning in Abuja before Justice Adamu Abubakar of Federal High Court, Abuja Division, played out a new script aimed at frustrating the course of his trial.The Senator is standing trial for allegedly lining his pockets with over 3.8 billion Naira embezzled from the state's treasury while he was at the helm of affairs in the state. The embattled former Governor made a new application this morning wherein he urged the court to adopt the judgment of a Court of Appeal in Kaduna Division which held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has no right to shop around for any court of its choice in prosecuting the former Governor of Delta state; Chief Onanefe James Ibori.
In the Ibori case, a Federal High Court in Kaduna ruled that it has jurisdiction to try the former Delta helmsman over charges of fraudulent embezzlement of the funds of Delta state. The former governor went on appeal and got the court of Appeal to upturn the ruling of the lower court. That case has been serving the purposes of these former governors who are standing trial on corruption charges who now wants their cases to be transferred to areas where their influences are still very strong after dominating their political landscape for 8 years.
Borrowing a leaf from the Ibori legal antiques, Senator Saminu Turaki brought in a fresh ground to his preliminary objection to his trial to introduce a challenge on the court's competence to entertain his trial. According to the former governor, "This court lacks the competence to entertain this charge, it is not the proper forum for this charge since the alleged offence was committed in Jigawa state and relates to the revenue of the state".
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, through their counsel, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs got the permission of the court to amend their initial written address filed in respect of Turaki's preliminary objection to accommodate this new ground introduced by the former governor and fixed the adoption of written addresses for 28th May, 2009.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });