The senator representing Abia-South Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Eyinnaya Abaribe, has urged the Court of Appeal in Abuja to relieve him of the role of surety for the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
In an amended seven grounds notice of appeal filed by his lawyer, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume,
In the document made available to journalists in Abuja on Thursday, Abaribe also asked the Appeal Court to set aside the November 14, 2018 order of the Federal High Court in Abuja which gave him and two others a two-month ultimatum to each pay N100m bond for their inability to produce the Biafran activist.
A ruling by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja, in November 14, 2018, had held that Abaribe and the two other sureties owed the court the duty of producing Kanu, whose absence since 2017 has halted his trial on charges of treasonable felony.
But the senator had also filed a brief of argument to challenge the Federal High Court’s decisions.
Relying on sections 55, 165(3), 167(3) and 488 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, and other provisions of the constitution, Mr Ume argued that a public officer such as a senator was legally exempted from standing surety for a suspect.
The senator’s lawyer blamed the Federal High Court for making a senator to be part of the sureties Kanu must present in April 2017.
“We, therefore, can see that the involvement of Senator Abaribe in the whole bail and surety quagmire was invalid, ab initio,” Mr Ume said.
The Abia Senator alongside two others had stood as sureties for Kanu before he was granted bail by the Federal High Court in Abuja on April 25, 2017.
