Court Again Adjourns Arraignment Of APC Chairman, Ganduje, Wife

Forum 2 weeks ago

Court Again Adjourns Arraignment Of APC Chairman, Ganduje, Wife

The scheduled arraignment of the immediate-past governor of Kano State and national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, on bribery charges has been rescheduled.

The arraignment has now been fixed by the Kano State High Court for May 16, 2024.

Ganduje, his wife Hafsat and son Umar and five others, who are defendants in the suit, were expected to be arraigned on eight count charges bordering on a $413,000 bribery allegation, diversion and misappropriation of funds to the tune of N1.38billion and abuse of office among other allegations.

They were first scheduled to be arraigned before Justice Justice Usman Na’abba on April 17 but the arraignment could not go on due to service failure.

The process was stalled for the second time on Monday over the difficulty by the prosecution to serve the charges on him and his co-defendants.

At the resumed hearing on Monday, the defendants were still absent from court.

The prosecuting counsel for the state, Adeola Adedegbe, blamed the situation on service failure and applied to the court to grant him the leave to serve the charges on the defendants by substituted means.

But the counsel for the sixth defendant, Lamash Properties Limited, Nuraini Jimoh (SAN), who was present in court, opposed the application.

Jimoh argued that respondents in a criminal case could not be served through substituted means. Stating that the position of Kano laws that allowed for that could be applicable in a case where the federal constitution had a say.

In his argument, he described the Kano State law as "ultra vires" and inferior to the Nigerian constitution that restricted such action, adding that Nigerian law states that service of criminal charges is on the exclusive legislative list.

“Hence, the Kano State Assembly law that allows service of criminal summons by substituted means is ultra vires,” he stated.

He added that the attempt to make the court allow service by substitute means when no effort had been made to reach the respondents, was a violation of Section 36 of the constitution.

After hearing both parties, the judge adjourned till May 16 for ruling.