Samuel Omowaye
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, declined to stop the trial of the immediate past Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello.The erstwhile governor is facing a 19-count money laundering charge the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, preferred against him.At the resumed proceeding in the matter, his legal team, led by Mr. Abdulwahab Mohammed, SAN, urged trial Justice Emeka Nwite to hands off the case, insisting that the Court of Appeal was already seized of the facts of the charge.He argued that going ahead with the trial would affect the subject matter of the appeal, insisting that all the records in the matter had already been transmitted.Mohammed, SAN, disclosed that his client went on appeal to challenge both the warrant of arrest that was issued against him as well as Justice Nwite’s position that the court in Abuja has the territorial jurisdiction to conduct the trial.“Our position is that your lordship has become functus officio and heavens will not fall if the court stays this proceeding to await the decision of the Court of Appeal.“We are relying on the provision of the Constitution, which overrides the EFCC Act that the prosecution is relying on,” the defence lawyer added.However, counsel to the EFCC, Mr. Kemi Pinhero, SAN, urged the court to refuse the application and proceed with the trial.Pinhero, SAN, argued that both section 306 of the Administration of Criminal Act, ACJA, 2015, and section 40 of the EFCC Act, forbade any court from suspending proceedings in such criminal cases.He maintained that the business of the day was for the court to rule on the failure of the defence lawyers to produce their client for trial, despite several undertakings they made in the open court.In his ruling, Justice Nwite noted that though the grant of such stay of proceeding is within the discretion of a trial judge, he held that the discretion must be exercised judicially and judiciously, in compliance with the law.The court agreed with the prosecution that both the ACJA and the EFCC Act expressly forbade courts from entertaining applications for the stay of proceeding in a criminal matterThe application is an attempt to use the issue of jurisdiction as a magic wand to stop this proceeding,” the judge held, adding that it was in defiance to a ruling the court delivered on May 10, wherein it stressed that it would not entertain any application from the defendant until he takes his plea.“I hold that the application is an abuse of court process and same is accordingly refused.”While relying on Order 35 of the Federal High Court Rules, as well as Sections 30 and 31 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners, Justice Nwite, held that the repeated failure of the defence lawyers to produce their client in court despite their undertakings, amounted to a gross misconduct.Noting that the rules prohibited lawyers from engaging in conducts capable of exposing the judiciary to disrepute, the trial judge made an order referring the defence lawyers to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, LPDC.“Ordinarily, I would have taken the matter head on, but, I will prefer to directs the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee to investigate Mr. Abdulwahab Mohammed, SAN, and Adeola Adedipe, SAN, for professional misconduct and make appropriate recommendation for sanctions,” Justice Nwite held.Meanwhile, he granted an application that one of the lawyers, Adedipe, SAN, filed to be allowed to withdraw from the case.Bello is facing a charge bordering on his alleged complicity in money laundering, breach of trust and misappropriation of public funds to the tune of about N80.2billion.EFCC alleged that he had alongside his nephew Ali Bello and two others, Dauda Suleiman and Abdulsalam Hudu, were complicit in money laundering.Though the ex-Kogi governor previously failed to appear before the court for his arraignment, however, he briefed lawyers to file an application to set aside an arrest warrant that was issued against him on April 17, as well as to challenge the jurisdiction of the court to try him.