The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has opposed the request by former Gombe State governor, Danjuma Goje to transfer his trial for conspiracy and money laundering from the Federal High Court Gombe to Abuja.
Goje and five others (Aliyu El-Nafaty, Sambo Tumu, S.M. Dokoro and S.M.
Dokoro Gombe) are standing trial before Justice Babatunde O. Quadri. At
today sitting, the defence team led by Chris Uche, SAN drew the court’s
attention to the letter written to the Chief Justice of the Federation
for change of venue and transfer of the case
from the present court in Gombe to Abuja or
any other jurisdiction outside Gombe state for security reasons. He
urged the court to suspend proceedings while awaiting the directive from
the CJN, before hearing of the pending application. But prosecution
Counsel, Wahab Shittu objected, saying the court can continue with the
matter pending any response from the CJN.
Justice
Quadri upheld the prosecution’s argument and urged both counsel to
consider the stress of coming from outside Gombe and seize the
opportunity of time.
Arguing his motion for transfer before the court, Chris
Uche, SAN quoted sections of the Federal High Court Act 2004 and the
1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to support his
motion. He predicated his request on the grounds that the matter is a
high profile one and that the security situation in the North East zone
with regularly reported incidents of killings, kidnappings, bomb blasts
and assassinations underline the need to protect the lives of the
accused persons and their lawyers.
In
his response, Shittu, called the court’s attention to the fact that in
all the proceedings prior to the application, there had been no incident
in court to warrant the request for transfer. According to Wahab, “this
application lacks merit and only determined to delay the wheel of
justice and your lordship is entitled to resist it”. He further queried
the intention of the defence: “What is the application saying, that your
lordship should transfer this case to Abuja? The presumption is that Abuja
is safe to hear this case. Do we believe them? Or is the applicant
saying that the case should be transferred to the Villa since they
deposed in
paragraph 13 of their affidavit that the last Independence Day was
moved out of its traditional place – the Eagle Square -to the villa for security reasons?”
Shittu
urged the court to throw out the application as acceding to it would be
tantamount to setting a precedence which may encourage other persons
with cases before the court to seek transfer of their cases to choice
places.
Justice Quadri has fixed ruling on the matter for tomorrow, January 23, 2013.
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