The Supreme Court has ordered the Federal Capital territory (FCT) High Court to retry former Senate President, Senator Adolphus Wabara; Senator Ibrahim Abdulazeez, and former of Minister of Education, Professor Fabian Osuji for bribery offences they were alleged to have committed in 2005 while in office.
The order was issued after the accused persons used appeal against ‘leave granted for their trial’ by the FCT High Court in 2005 to block their trial for eight years.
The Federal Government had slammed a 15-count criminal charge on them, with names and addresses of witnesses as well as three proofs of evidence of another 21 witnesses.
Wabara, Abdulazeez and others are alleged to have demanded the sum of N50m from Professor Osuji, the then minister of education, to secure easy passage of the 2005 budgetary allocation of the Federal Ministry of Education in the way they had assisted in passing the 2004 allocation.
On his part, Abdulazeez is alleged to have received a further sum of N5m for facilitating understanding between both sides. But, the accused after pleading not guilty to the charges, applied through their counsel to the trial court to set aside the leave granted to the Federal Government on the ground that they had been tried and convicted by then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. They had also contested the proof of evidence, saying it did not disclose any prima facie case against them.
But in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad, the apex court held that the proof of evidence “discloses sufficient materials on the basis of which the trial court has exercised its discretion judiciously and judicially.”
He said that the Federal Government has fulfilled the conditions the law placed on it and that the judgment of the court below (Court of Appeal) is perverse.
“On the whole, I hereby allow the meritorious appeal, set aside the judgment of the court below, restore the trial court’s decision and remit the case to that court for trial of the respondents to be conducted and concluded expeditiously,” he held.
