George, others challenge conviction at S’Court

HAVING regained their freedom on February 26, following the completion of two years jail terms in Kirikiri Prison for corrupt practices, a convicted former Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Olabode George, and five others have approached the Supreme Court for redress. In their Notices of Appeal filed by their lawyers, the ex-convicts are asking the apex court to set aside their conviction and discharge and acquit them accordingly. Apart from George, who was also the former Deputy National Chairman (South) of the Peoples Democratic Party, other convicts are a former Managing Director of the NPA, Aminu Dabo; Olusegun Abidoye; Abdullahi Tafida; Zanna Maidaribe; and Sule Aliyu. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had prosecuted the convicts just as Justice Joseph Oyewole of a Lagos High Court in Ikeja sentenced them to two years imprisonment without an option of fine for abuse of office, contract splitting and disobedience to lawful order. The convicts later filed an appeal against their conviction before the Court of Appeal in Lagos but the appellate court dismissed their appeal and upheld the judgment of Justice Oyewole. But the convicts are asking the apex court to hold in one of their grounds of appeal that the appellate court justices misdirected themselves when they allegedly lumped the issue of jurisdiction of the Lagos High Court to try them with the issue of the power of the Attorney -General of the Federation to prosecute. The appellants also alleged that the justices of the Court of Appeal, having held that the offences leading to their conviction were those spelt out in the Criminal Code Laws of Lagos State, 2003, and that the charge at the lower court was initiated by the AGF, erred in law when they failed to hold that the AGF had no authority in prosecuting them under the state law. They further claimed that the justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law when they equated the exercise of the authority of the power of delegation of the Lagos State Attorney-General in Amadi’s case with the case under appeal where no delegation of the power was given. According to the appellants, the appellate court justices erred when they held that under Section 174 and 211 of the 1999 Constitution, the power of the AGF is not subject to question by the court or by anybody else. The appellants are further asking the apex court to hold that the appellate court erred in law when it held that the issue of non-competence of the AGF to prosecute the appellants under the Criminal Code of Lagos State was an issue which was overridden by Section 167 of the Criminal Procedure Law. The appellants also claimed that the issue with regards to the power of the AGF under Section 174 of the Constitution was a constitutional issue and that a state law i.e. Criminal Procedure Law of Lagos State could not override the provision of the constitution. They alleged that a constitutional point as it related to the exercise of power of the AGF under section 174 of the Constitution vis-à-vis that of the power of the Lagos AG under section 211 could be taken at any point of litigation even at the highest court- Supreme Court. No date has been fixed for the hearing of the appeal. By Ade Adesomoju, Courtesy Of: Punch