The Federal Capital Territory High Court, sitting in Bwari, has remanded the factional chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) Chief Edozie Njoku after he was arraigned before Justice Mohammed Madugu.
Njoku and Chukwuemeka Nwoga (factional National Youth Leader of the party) were arraingned before the court on 14-count charges bordering on forgery and falsification of Supreme Court’s judgement, among others.
Njoku was billed to appear before Justice Madugu on November 21 but failed to show up; a development that caused Police prosecutor, Ezekiel Rimansonte to ask trial judge to remind the accused at the Suleja Correctional Centre until the next adjourned date.
Justice Madugu, despite plea from defense counsel, Panam Ntui, ordered the accused to be remanded in a Correctional Centre.
The defence counsel Barrister Panam Ntui explained that on the last adjourned date the defendants failed to appear on the first day the matter was to be mention “so the court granted prosecution council request to issue a bench warrant against the defendant.”
He said the Bench Warrant was granted by court but the prosecution couldn’t secure the defendants because “They were actually outside the jurisdiction of the court, far away in the East but by providence God brought them back to jurisdiction and on their own they attended the court to show that there is nothing they are running away from or they are hiding.
“They are people of integrity and societal standing so they have nothing to hide. All the allegations in the count charges are totally baseless and at the appropriate time the defendants will prove their case
“Today being the next adjourned date we sought the leave of court to move two motion, the first for the court to vacate the bench warrant issued against the defendants, one because they are not criminal, they are not running away from justice. And the court graciously granted that.”
“The second application is the motion for the bail of the defendants, the court heard the motion but adjourned the ruling to November 30th being Wednesday.
He expressed the hope that justice will be done on Wednesday because the purported offences he indicated bailable offences. “By Wednesday we believe the court will rule and we hope that his Lordship will grant them bail.
On the difficulty to get Justice Odili who is being involved by the defendants he said it is not difficult as they have just been arraigned. Speaking on that will be prejudice because it is after arraignment the court will take their plea and take jurisdiction.
The Prosecution Council Rimam Somtay Ezikiel chief superintendent of police said the Police decided to institute this criminal charges against Edozie Njoku because of the unprecedented nature of the offence. “Supreme Court of Nigeria is the highest court of the land this man was not a party to the case, from Jigawa State High Court to the Court of appeal in Kano State and to Supreme Court when he applied to be joined as an interested party the court refused and struck out his application. “This man went and fraudulently gave money to the registrars of the Supreme Court to give him the judgement of a court that he was not a party to.
“According to him, Justice Mary Odili gave him this judgement, is it because he is from Mbaise in Imo State and Justice Mary Ofili is also from Mbaise in Imo State?
“Who were his lawyers in this case? Where are the processes Njoku filed in Court that warranted him to be issued with the record of a judgement of the supreme Court with his name?
“There is no way Justice Mary Odili will not be invited for this case because we are going to amend this charge, she is coming in as a co-accused person or as a witness in this case for prosecution, she has no option.
“Nobody is above the law, in fact Justice Mary Odili should go and pray, fast and ask God to save her from this case because Njoku threw his weight on justice Odili.”