Malami fined by Abuja high court for wasting its time in trial of four Ipob members

NIGERIA'S justice minister and attorney-general of the federation Abubakar Malami has been fined N200,000 by an Abuja high court for wasting court time during the trial of four of Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) leader's Nnamdi Kanu's co-defendants.

Highly controversial, Mr Kanu has been campaigning for the recreation of the independent republic of Biafra which broke away from Nigeria between July 1967 and January 1970 during the civil war. His campaign, which has led to the phenomenal growth of Ipob, has set him at odds with the Nigerian government who him arrested and put on trial for treason.

While the case was still pending, Mr Kanu was granted bail in April 2017 on health grounds but skipped his bail after flouting the conditions given to him by the court and fled Nigeria. In a dramatic development, however, in June last year, Mr Kanu was abducted in Kenya and deported to Nigeria in a highly efficient military operation and his trial has since resumed.

Yesterday, at a hearing in Abuja, Justice Binta Nyako of the federal high court imposed a fine of N200,000 on Mr Malami. She ordered that each of the four defendants be paid N50,000 by the justice minister for the inconvenience they suffered as a result of the absence of the lead counsel to the federal government, Shuaib Magaji Labaran, during their treason trial.

Justice Nyako, who was visibly angry with the way the trial was proceeding, ordered that the N200,000 must be paid to the defendants before the adjourned date of March 17. At yesterday's proceedings, there was no legal representation for the federal government at the time the matter was called.

However, as the judge was about to take the adjournment, one Mrs Adewumi Aluko from the Federal Ministry of Justice came in and apologised that the federal government’s lead counsel was out of the country. She announced that two witnesses were in court but will not want to proceed in the absence of the lead counsel and sought an adjournment.

Her apology did not go down well with the judge who counselled the federal government to be more serious in the trial of the defendants. Also, the judge extended similar counselling to the defence lawyers to stop using frivolous applications to delay the trial which was started in 2015 before fixing March 17 for the resumption of the trial.