Judge orders Abaribe to pay N100m over Kanu’s disappearance

…varies Kanu’s bail condition, threatens arrest of sureties

The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the three persons who stood sureties for the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, to within two months, pay the sum of N100m each into the court’s account for their inability to produce the missing Biafran activist in court.
Justice Binta Nyako gave the order on Wednesday in a ruling in which she amended the conditions of the bail she had in April 2017 granted Kanu. Kanu is being prosecuted before the court on charges of treasonable felony.
His trial had been earlier separated from that of his co-accused following his disappearance after a military invasion of his home in Afara-Ukwu, Umuahia, in Abia State, on September 14, 2017
The three sureties who guaranteed his bail, including Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, had been made to sign a bail bond of N100m each which was backed by their landed assets whose documents were deposited in court.
Apart from Abaribe, two others who stood surety for Kanu are a Jewish priest, Immanuel Shalom; and an accountant and Abuja resident, Tochukwu Uchendu.
The court also threatened to order the arrest of Senator Abaribe and another surety who undertook to produce Nnamdi Kanu ahead of his bail in April, 2017. The third surety was however present in court on Wednesday.
The court presided by Binta Nyako said it was varying the bail conditions because Abaribe’s lawyer, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, told the court that the senator was attending an oversight function and could not attend the trial.
The visibly angry Nyako, said, “I have taken the view that the oversight function is more important than this hearing. I do not have a proceeding against the sureties. All I want is for them to produce my Nnamdi Kanu.
“In this proceeding where these men have lost my Nnamdi Kanu, they are going to be in my trouble, because I gave him to them.”
With the amendment ordered by the court on Wednesday, they are now required to deposit cash of N100m in the bank account of the court.
Justice Nyako ruled that the three sureties had two months to pay the sum of N100m each into the court’s account.
The judge reiterated that the order directing the sureties to pay the money was an order of interim forfeiture.
She fixed March 28 for the hearing of the motions filed by the sureties to challenging the duties imposed on them to produce the IPOB leader.