Senator Ndume Urges Court To Discharge Him As Maina’s Surety

Senator Ali Ndume(Borno South) wants the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to release the title documents of the landed property he tendered while standing as a surety to the embattled former chairman of the Pension Reformed Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina.

He is also asking the court to discharge him as surety for Maina, who was rearrested after jumping bail and is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged fraud and pension scam.

THE WHISTLER earlier reported that the Court had on November 27 granted Ndume bail, after remanding him due to Maina breaching his bail terms.

Part of the bail conditions were that he should enter a N500 million bail bond as well as deposit other documents including his international passport.

On Monday, Ndume’s lawyer, Marcel Oru, told Justice Okong Abang that since Maina was now in the custody of the federal government, the court should discharge his client from the case and release his documents.

“We are praying the court to discharge the applicant, formerly as a surety in the matter and for the documents of title that were deposited in court to be released to him considering the fact that the first defendant, Abdulrasheed Maina had jumped bail and has been rearrested and is in the custody of the complainant,” he said.

But Abang asked him whether he had filed court processes at the Court of Appeal challenging his verdict regarding the issues surrounding Ndume’s suretyship.

Oru affirmed that he did but urged the judge to consider his application based on recent developments.

“Ordinarily, if the appeal has been entered, this court will not have jurisdiction to attend to the situation. But in the present circumstances that Maina himself has been rearrested and is facing his trial before this court now, we have the opinion that your lordship can hear the matter,” he replied.

The judge then sought the response of the respondent, of which the EFCC counsel, M.S. Abubakar argued that Ndume must have agreed with the ruling of the court, hence, the reason he sought further interpretation from a higher court.

He contended that the judge could no longer hear the matter.

“My lord, the court has no jurisdiction to entertain this suit and we filed a preliminary objection dated 21 December 2020.

“I urge the court to dismiss or strike out the application as the case may be, the reply on points of law felt short of the provisions of the Appeal Court, therefore the applicant is deemed to have admitted to our submissions.

“If this application is granted, if the court grants prayers 1 to 3, there won’t be anything for the court to determine,” he said.

On his part, Abang adjourned to October 4 for ruling.

“In my ruling, I will first make findings on the defendant’s preliminary objection, if the objection succeeds that will be the end of the matter…Matter is adjourned to 4 October for ruling,” he held.