A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos,
yesterday, directed the prosecution to produce
at the next adjourned date, the Commissioner
for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel to court to answer
to criminal charges leveled against him by the
Attorney General of the Federation, AGF.
.
Trial Judge, Justice Okon Abang, while ruling
on an application by the prosecution for a bench
warrant to be issued against the Insurance
Chief, held that it would be improper to do so
hastily, particularly, for an accused that has not
been formally arraigned before him.
.
Having refused to grant the bench warrant, the
trial judge ordered the prosecution to ensure
that it produced the accused to court at the
next adjourned date and subsequently
adjourned till February 6, 2014 for the
arraignment of the accused.
.
While the AGF is represented by Mrs C
Enembo, the accused was not represented even
though the prosecution insisted that he had
been properly put on notice.
.
Daniel is facing a six count charge bordering on
criminal misrepresentation of facts and
deliberate falsehood.
.
Justice Okon is the second judge to sit over
the matter.
.
The first judge was Justice Ibrahim Buba, who
struck out the suit on the ground that it was not
properly filed late last year.
.
At that time, the accused was represented by
Professor Taiwo Osipitan, SAN. All through the
pendency of the suit, the accused never
appeared in court.
.
His counsel, Osipitan had argued that because a
private prosecutor, Mr Chijioke Ndubuisi
initiated the charge without first obtaining the
fiat of the AGF, there was no charge to be taken
over by the office of the AGF.
.
Though Ndubuisi later got the AGF to take over
the prosecution, Osipitan said it can’t happen
because the charge did not comply with the
rules of the Federal High Court due to the
manner it was filed.
.
However, Enembo maintained that the office of
the AGF has power to take over any
prosecution initiated by a private prosecutor by
virtue of section 174 (1) (b) of the Constitution.
.
But in his ruling, Justice Buba agreed with
Osipitan and struck out the suit on the ground
that it was defective.
.
As a result, the office of the AGF initiated this
fresh charge which is now before Abang.
.
A private prosecutor, Ndubuisi, had filed the
motion together with a six-count charge
against Daniel at the court and subsequently
wrote for a fiat of the AGF. The AGF declined
the fiat but instead elected to do the
prosecution.
.
In the said charge accompanying Ndubuisi’s
motion, it was alleged that Daniel deliberately
made a number of misleading and malicious
misrepresentations against an insurance
company, Alliance and General Insurance
Limited to a number of public officers and
agencies with the intention of damaging the
reputation of the said insurance company.
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1 Comment
It is just how we will always expect it to be. Criminal Allegations will always warrant such so investigations can proceed